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diff --git a/old/oitot10.txt b/old/oitot10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..619c4c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/oitot10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7257 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext Openings in the Old Trail, by Bret Harte +#21 in our series by Bret Harte + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com. + + + + + +OPENINGS IN THE OLD TRAIL + +by Bret Harte + + + + +CONTENTS + + +OPENINGS IN THE OLD TRAIL + + I. A MERCURY OF THE FOOT-HILLS + II. COLONEL STARBOTTLE FOR THE PLAINTIFF + III. THE LANDLORD OF THE BIG FLUME HOTEL + IV. A BUCKEYE HOLLOW INHERITANCE + V. THE REINCARNATION OF SMITH + VI. LANTY FOSTER'S MISTAKE + VII. AN ALI BABA OF THE SIERRAS +VIII. MISS PEGGY'S PROTEGES + IX. THE GODDESS OF EXCELSIOR + + + + +OPENINGS IN THE OLD TRAIL + +by Bret Harte + + + + +A MERCURY OF THE FOOT-HILLS + + +It was high hot noon on the Casket Ridge. Its very scant shade was +restricted to a few dwarf Scotch firs, and was so perpendicularly +cast that Leonidas Boone, seeking shelter from the heat, was +obliged to draw himself up under one of them, as if it were an +umbrella. Occasionally, with a boy's perversity, he permitted one +bared foot to protrude beyond the sharply marked shadow until the +burning sun forced him to draw it in again with a thrill of +satisfaction. There was no earthly reason why he had not sought +the larger shadows of the pine-trees which reared themselves +against the Ridge on the slope below him, except that he was a boy, +and perhaps even more superstitious and opinionated than most boys. +Having got under this tree with infinite care, he had made up his +mind that he would not move from it until its line of shade reached +and touched a certain stone on the trail near him! WHY he did this +he did not know, but he clung to his sublime purpose with the +courage and tenacity of a youthful Casabianca. He was cramped, +tickled by dust and fir sprays; he was supremely uncomfortable--but +he stayed! A woodpecker was monotonously tapping in an adjacent +pine, with measured intervals of silence, which he always firmly +believed was a certain telegraphy of the bird's own making; a +green-and-gold lizard flashed by his foot to stiffen itself +suddenly with a rigidity equal to his own. Still HE stirred not. +The shadow gradually crept nearer the mystic stone--and touched it. +He sprang up, shook himself, and prepared to go about his business. +This was simply an errand to the post-office at the cross-roads, +scarcely a mile from his father's house. He was already halfway +there. He had taken only the better part of one hour for this +desultory journey! + +However, he now proceeded on his way, diverging only to follow a +fresh rabbit-track a few hundred yards, to note that the animal had +doubled twice against the wind, and then, naturally, he was obliged +to look closely for other tracks to determine its pursuers. He +paused also, but only for a moment, to rap thrice on the trunk of +the pine where the woodpecker was at work, which he knew would make +it cease work for a time--as it did. Having thus renewed his +relations with nature, he discovered that one of the letters he was +taking to the post-office had slipped in some mysterious way from +the bosom of his shirt, where he carried them, past his waist-band +into his trouser-leg, and was about to make a casual delivery of +itself on the trail. This caused him to take out his letters and +count them, when he found one missing. He had been given four +letters to post--he had only three. There was a big one in his +father's handwriting, two indistinctive ones of his mother's, and a +smaller one of his sister's--THAT was gone! Not at all disconcerted, +he calmly retraced his steps, following his own tracks minutely, +with a grim face and a distinct delight in the process, while +looking--perfunctorily--for the letter. In the midst of this slow +progress a bright idea struck him. He walked back to the fir-tree +where he had rested, and found the lost missive. It had slipped out +of his shirt when he shook himself. He was not particularly pleased. +He knew that nobody would give him credit for his trouble in going +back for it, or his astuteness in guessing where it was. He heaved +the sigh of misunderstood genius, and again started for the +post-office. This time he carried the letters openly and +ostentatiously in his hand. + +Presently he heard a voice say, "Hey!" It was a gentle, musical +voice,--a stranger's voice, for it evidently did not know how to +call him, and did not say, "Oh, Leonidas!" or "You--look here!" He +was abreast of a little clearing, guarded by a low stockade of bark +palings, and beyond it was a small white dwelling-house. Leonidas +knew the place perfectly well. It belonged to the superintendent +of a mining tunnel, who had lately rented it to some strangers from +San Francisco. Thus much he had heard from his family. He had a +mountain boy's contempt for city folks, and was not himself +interested in them. Yet as he heard the call, he was conscious of +a slightly guilty feeling. He might have been trespassing in +following the rabbit's track; he might have been seen by some one +when he lost the letter and had to go back for it--all grown-up +people had a way of offering themselves as witnesses against him! +He scowled a little as he glanced around him. Then his eye fell on +the caller on the other side of the stockade. + +To his surprise it was a woman: a pretty, gentle, fragile creature, +all soft muslin and laces, with her fingers interlocked, and +leaning both elbows on the top of the stockade as she stood under +the checkered shadow of a buckeye. + +"Come here--please--won't you?" she said pleasantly. + +It would have been impossible to resist her voice if Leonidas had +wanted to, which he didn't. He walked confidently up to the fence. +She really was very pretty, with eyes like his setter's, and as +caressing. And there were little puckers and satiny creases around +her delicate nostrils and mouth when she spoke, which Leonidas knew +were "expression." + +"I--I"--she began, with charming hesitation; then suddenly, "What's +your name?" + +"Leonidas." + +"Leonidas! That's a pretty name!" He thought it DID sound pretty. +"Well, Leonidas, I want you to be a good boy and do a great favor +for me,--a very great favor." + +Leonidas's face fell. This kind of prelude and formula was +familiar to him. It was usually followed by, "Promise me that you +will never swear again," or, "that you will go straight home and +wash your face," or some other irrelevant personality. But nobody +with that sort of eyes had ever said it. So he said, a little +shyly but sincerely, "Yes, ma'am." + +"You are going to the post-office?" + +This seemed a very foolish, womanish question, seeing that he was +holding letters in his hand; but he said, "Yes." + +"I want you to put a letter of mine among yours and post them all +together," she said, putting one little hand to her bosom and +drawing out a letter. He noticed that she purposely held the +addressed side so that he could not see it, but he also noticed +that her hand was small, thin, and white, even to a faint tint of +blue in it, unlike his sister's, the baby's, or any other hand he +had ever seen. "Can you read?" she said suddenly, withdrawing the +letter. + +The boy flushed slightly at the question. "Of course I can," he +said proudly. + +"Of course, certainly," she repeated quickly; "but," she added, +with a mischievous smile, "you mustn't NOW! Promise me! Promise +me that you won't read this address, but just post the letter, like +one of your own, in the letter-box with the others." + +Leonidas promised readily; it seemed to him a great fuss about +nothing; perhaps it was some kind of game or a bet. He opened his +sunburnt hand, holding his own letters, and she slipped hers, face +downward, between them. Her soft fingers touched his in the +operation, and seemed to leave a pleasant warmth behind them. + +"Promise me another thing," she added; "promise me you won't say a +word of this to any one." + +"Of course!" said Leonidas. + +"That's a good boy, and I know you will keep your word." She +hesitated a moment, smilingly and tentatively, and then held out a +bright half-dollar. Leonidas backed from the fence. "I'd rather +not," he said shyly. + +"But as a present from ME?" + +Leonidas colored--he was really proud; and he was also bright +enough to understand that the possession of such unbounded wealth +would provoke dangerous inquiry at home. But he didn't like to say +it, and only replied, "I can't." + +She looked at him curiously. "Then--thank you," she said, offering +her white hand, which felt like a bird in his. "Now run on, and +don't let me keep you any longer." She drew back from the fence as +she spoke, and waved him a pretty farewell. Leonidas, half sorry, +half relieved, darted away. + +He ran to the post-office, which he never had done before. Loyally +he never looked at her letter, nor, indeed, at his own again, +swinging the hand that held them far from his side. He entered the +post-office directly, going at once to the letter-box and +depositing the precious missive with the others. The post-office +was also the "country store," and Leonidas was in the habit of +still further protracting his errands there by lingering in that +stimulating atmosphere of sugar, cheese, and coffee. But to-day +his stay was brief, so transitory that the postmaster himself +inferred audibly that "old man Boone must have been tanning Lee +with a hickory switch." But the simple reason was that Leonidas +wished to go back to the stockade fence and the fair stranger, if +haply she was still there. His heart sank as, breathless with +unwonted haste, he reached the clearing and the empty buckeye +shade. He walked slowly and with sad diffidence by the deserted +stockade fence. But presently his quick eye discerned a glint of +white among the laurels near the house. It was SHE, walking with +apparent indifference away from him towards the corner of the +clearing and the road. But this he knew would bring her to the end +of the stockade fence, where he must pass--and it did. She turned +to him with a bright smile of affected surprise. "Why, you're as +swift-footed as Mercury!" + +Leonidas understood her perfectly. Mercury was the other name for +quicksilver--and that was lively, you bet! He had often spilt some +on the floor to see it move. She must be awfully cute to have +noticed it too--cuter than his sisters. He was quite breathless +with pleasure. + +"I put your letter in the box all right," he burst out at last. + +"Without any one seeing it?" she asked. + +"Sure pop! nary one! The postmaster stuck out his hand to grab it, +but I just let on that I didn't see him, and shoved it in myself." + +"You're as sharp as you're good," she said smilingly. "Now, +there's just ONE thing more I want you to do. Forget all about +this--won't you?" + +Her voice was very caressing. Perhaps that was why he said boldly: +"Yes, ma'am, all except YOU." + +"Dear me, what a compliment! How old are you?" + +"Goin' on fifteen," said Leonidas confidently. + +"And going very fast," said the lady mischievously. "Well, then, +you needn't forget ME. On the contrary," she added, after looking +at him curiously, "I would rather you'd remember me. Good-by--or, +rather, good-afternoon--if I'm to be remembered, Leon." + +"Good-afternoon, ma'am." + +She moved away, and presently disappeared among the laurels. But +her last words were ringing in his ears. "Leon"--everybody else +called him "Lee" for brevity; "Leon"--it was pretty as she said it. + +He turned away. But it so chanced that their parting was not to +pass unnoticed, for, looking up the hill, Leonidas perceived his +elder sister and little brother coming down the road, and knew that +they must have seen him from the hilltop. It was like their +"snoopin'"! + +They ran to him eagerly. + +"You were talking to the stranger," said his sister breathlessly. + +"She spoke to me first," said Leonidas, on the defensive. + +"What did she say?" + +"Wanted to know the eleckshun news," said Leonidas with cool +mendacity, "and I told her." + +This improbable fiction nevertheless satisfied them. "What was she +like? Oh, do tell us, Lee!" continued his sister. + +Nothing would have delighted him more than to expatiate upon her +loveliness, the soft white beauty of her hands, the "cunning" +little puckers around her lips, her bright tender eyes, the angelic +texture of her robes, and the musical tinkle of her voice. But +Leonidas had no confidant, and what healthy boy ever trusted his +sister in such matter! "YOU saw what she was like," he said, with +evasive bluntness. + +"But, Lee"-- + +But Lee was adamant. "Go and ask her," he said. + +"Like as not you were sassy to her, and she shut you up," said his +sister artfully. But even this cruel suggestion, which he could +have so easily flouted, did not draw him, and his ingenious +relations flounced disgustedly away. + +But Leonidas was not spared any further allusion to the fair +stranger; for the fact of her having spoken to him was duly +reported at home, and at dinner his reticence was again sorely +attacked. "Just like her, in spite of all her airs and graces, to +hang out along the fence like any ordinary hired girl, jabberin' +with anybody that went along the road," said his mother incisively. +He knew that she didn't like her new neighbors, so this did not +surprise nor greatly pain him. Neither did the prosaic facts that +were now first made plain to him. His divinity was a Mrs. +Burroughs, whose husband was conducting a series of mining +operations, and prospecting with a gang of men on the Casket Ridge. +As his duty required his continual presence there, Mrs. Burroughs +was forced to forego the civilized pleasures of San Francisco for a +frontier life, for which she was ill fitted, and in which she had +no interest. All this was a vague irrelevance to Leonidas, who +knew her only as a goddess in white who had been familiar to him, +and kind, and to whom he was tied by the delicious joy of having a +secret in common, and having done her a special favor. Healthy +youth clings to its own impressions, let reason, experience, and +even facts argue ever to the contrary. + +So he kept her secret and his intact, and was rewarded a few days +afterwards by a distant view of her walking in the garden, with a +man whom he recognized as her husband. It is needless to say that, +without any extraneous thought, the man suffered in Leonidas's +estimation by his propinquity to the goddess, and that he deemed +him vastly inferior. + +It was a still greater reward to his fidelity that she seized an +opportunity when her husband's head was turned to wave her hand to +him. Leonidas did not approach the fence, partly through shyness +and partly through a more subtle instinct that this man was not in +the secret. He was right, for only the next day, as he passed to +the post-office, she called him to the fence. + +"Did you see me wave my hand to you yesterday?" she asked +pleasantly. + +"Yes, ma'am; but"--he hesitated--"I didn't come up, for I didn't +think you wanted me when any one else was there." + +She laughed merrily, and lifting his straw hat from his head, ran +the fingers of the other hand through his damp curls. "You're the +brightest, dearest boy I ever knew, Leon," she said, dropping her +pretty face to the level of his own, "and I ought to have +remembered it. But I don't mind telling you I was dreadfully +frightened lest you might misunderstand me and come and ask for +another letter--before HIM." As she emphasized the personal +pronoun, her whole face seemed to change: the light of her blue +eyes became mere glittering points, her nostrils grew white and +contracted, and her pretty little mouth seemed to narrow into a +straight cruel line, like a cat's. "Not a word ever to HIM, of all +men! Do you hear?" she said almost brusquely. Then, seeing the +concern in the boy's face, she laughed, and added explanatorily: +"He's a bad, bad man, Leon, remember that." + +The fact that she was speaking of her husband did not shock the +boy's moral sense in the least. The sacredness of those relations, +and even of blood kinship, is, I fear, not always so clear to the +youthful mind as we fondly imagine. That Mr. Burroughs was a bad +man to have excited this change in this lovely woman was Leonidas's +only conclusion. He remembered how his sister's soft, pretty +little kitten, purring on her lap, used to get its back up and spit +at the postmaster's yellow hound. + +"I never wished to come unless you called me first," he said +frankly. + +"What?" she said, in her half playful, half reproachful, but wholly +caressing way. "You mean to say you would never come to see me +unless I sent for you? Oh, Leon! and you'd abandon me in that +way?" + +But Leonidas was set in his own boyish superstition. "I'd just +delight in being sent for by you any time, Mrs. Burroughs, and you +kin always find me," he said shyly, but doggedly; "but"-- He +stopped. + +"What an opinionated young gentleman! Well, I see I must do all +the courting. So consider that I sent for you this morning. I've +got another letter for you to mail." She put her hand to her +breast, and out of the pretty frillings of her frock produced, as +before, with the same faint perfume of violets, a letter like the +first. But it was unsealed. "Now, listen, Leon; we are going to +be great friends--you and I." Leonidas felt his cheeks glowing. +"You are going to do me another great favor, and we are going to +have a little fun and a great secret all by our own selves. Now, +first, have you any correspondent--you know--any one who writes to +you--any boy or girl--from San Francisco?" + +Leonidas's cheeks grew redder--alas! from a less happy consciousness. +He never received any letters; nobody ever wrote to him. He was +obliged to make this shameful admission. + +Mrs. Burroughs looked thoughtful. "But you have some friend in San +Francisco--some one who MIGHT write to you?" she suggested +pleasantly. + +"I knew a boy once who went to San Francisco," said Leonidas +doubtfully. "At least, he allowed he was goin' there." + +"That will do," said Mrs. Burroughs. "I suppose your parents know +him or of him?" + +"Why," said Leonidas, "he used to live here." + +"Better still. For, you see, it wouldn't be strange if he DID +write. What was the gentleman's name?" + +"Jim Belcher," returned Leonidas hesitatingly, by no means sure +that the absent Belcher knew how to write. Mrs. Burroughs took a +tiny pencil from her belt, opened the letter she was holding in her +hand, and apparently wrote the name in it. Then she folded it and +sealed it, smiling charmingly at Leonidas's puzzled face. + +"Now, Leon, listen; for here is the favor I am asking. Mr. Jim +Belcher"--she pronounced the name with great gravity--"will write +to you in a few days. But inside of YOUR letter will be a little +note to me, which you will bring me. You can show your letter to +your family, if they want to know who it is from; but no one must +see MINE. Can you manage that?" + +"Yes," said Leonidas. Then, as the whole idea flashed upon his +quick intelligence, he smiled until he showed his dimples. Mrs. +Burroughs leaned forward over the fence, lifted his torn straw hat, +and dropped a fluttering little kiss on his forehead. It seemed to +the boy, flushed and rosy as a maid, as if she had left a shining +star there for every one to see. + +"Don't smile like that, Leon, you're positively irresistible! It +will be a nice little game, won't it? Nobody in it but you and me-- +and Belcher! We'll outwit them yet. And, you see, you'll be +obliged to come to me, after all, without my asking." + +They both laughed; indeed, quite a dimpled, bright-eyed, rosy, +innocent pair, though I think Leonidas was the more maidenly. + +"And," added Leonidas, with breathless eagerness, "I can sometimes +write to--to--Jim, and inclose your letter." + +"Angel of wisdom! certainly. Well, now, let's see--have you got +any letters for the post to-day?" He colored again, for in +anticipation of meeting her he had hurried up the family post that +morning. He held out his letters: she thrust her own among them. +"Now," she said, laying her cool, soft hand against his hot cheek, +"run along, dear; you must not be seen loitering here." + +Leonidas ran off, buoyed up on ambient air. It seemed just like a +fairy-book. Here he was, the confidant of the most beautiful +creature he had seen, and there was a mysterious letter coming to +him--Leonidas--and no one to know why. And now he had a "call" to +see her often; she would not forget him--he needn't loiter by the +fencepost to see if she wanted him--and his boyish pride and +shyness were appeased. There was no question of moral ethics +raised in Leonidas's mind; he knew that it would not be the real +Jim Belcher who would write to him, but that made the prospect the +more attractive. Nor did another circumstance trouble his +conscience. When he reached the post-office, he was surprised to +see the man whom he knew to be Mr. Burroughs talking with the +postmaster. Leonidas brushed by him and deposited his letters in +the box in discreet triumph. The postmaster was evidently +officially resenting some imputation on his carelessness, and, +concluding his defense, "No, sir," he said, "you kin bet your boots +that ef any letter hez gone astray for you or your wife-- Ye said +your wife, didn't ye?" + +"Yes," said Burroughs hastily, with a glance around the shop. + +"Well, for you or anybody at your house--it ain't here that's the +fault. You hear me! I know every letter that comes in and goes +outer this office, I reckon, and handle 'em all,"--Leonidas pricked +up his ears,--"and if anybody oughter know, it's me. Ye kin paste +that in your hat, Mr. Burroughs." Burroughs, apparently +disconcerted by the intrusion of a third party--Leonidas--upon what +was evidently a private inquiry, murmured something surlily, and +passed out. + +Leonidas was puzzled. That big man seemed to be "snoopin'" around +for something! He knew that he dared not touch the letter-bag,-- +Leonidas had heard somewhere that it was a deadly crime to touch +any letters after the Government had got hold of them once, and he +had no fears for the safety of hers. But ought he not go back at +once and tell her about her husband's visit, and the alarming fact +that the postmaster was personally acquainted with all the letters? +He instantly saw, too, the wisdom of her inclosing her letter +hereafter in another address. Yet he finally resolved not to tell +her to-day,--it would look like "hanging round" again; and--another +secret reason--he was afraid that any allusion to her husband's +interference would bring back that change in her beautiful face +which he did not like. The better to resist temptation, he went +back another way. + +It must not be supposed that, while Leonidas indulged in this +secret passion for the beautiful stranger, it was to the exclusion +of his boyish habits. It merely took the place of his intellectual +visions and his romantic reading. He no longer carried books in +his pocket on his lazy rambles. What were mediaeval legends of +high-born ladies and their pages to this real romance of himself +and Mrs. Burroughs? What were the exploits of boy captains and +juvenile trappers and the Indian maidens and Spanish senoritas to +what was now possible to himself and his divinity here--upon Casket +Ridge! The very ground around her was now consecrated to romance +and adventure. Consequently, he visited a few traps on his way +back which he had set for "jackass-rabbits" and wildcats,--the +latter a vindictive reprisal for aggression upon an orphan brood of +mountain quail which he had taken under his protection. For, while +he nourished a keen love of sport, it was controlled by a boy's +larger understanding of nature: a pantheistic sympathy with man and +beast and plant, which made him keenly alive to the strange +cruelties of creation, revealed to him some queer animal feuds, and +made him a chivalrous partisan of the weaker. He had even gone out +of his way to defend, by ingenious contrivances of his own, the +hoard of a golden squirrel and the treasures of some wild bees from +a predatory bear, although it did not prevent him later from +capturing the squirrel by an equally ingenious contrivance, and +from eventually eating some of the honey. + +He was late home that evening. But this was "vacation,"--the +district school was closed, and but for the household "chores," +which occupied his early mornings, each long summer day was a +holiday. So two or three passed; and then one morning, on his +going to the post-office, the postmaster threw down upon the +counter a real and rather bulky letter, duly stamped, and addressed +to Mr. Leonidas Boone! Leonidas was too discreet to open it before +witnesses, but in the solitude of the trail home broke the seal. +It contained another letter with no address--clearly the one SHE +expected--and, more marvelous still, a sheaf of trout-hooks, with +delicate gut-snells such as Leonidas had only dared to dream of. +The letter to himself was written in a clear, distinct hand, and +ran as follows:-- + + +DEAR LEE,--How are you getting on on old Casket Ridge? It seems a +coon's age since you and me was together, and times I get to think +I must just run up and see you! We're having bully times in +'Frisco, you bet! though there ain't anything wild worth shucks to +go to see--'cept the sea lions at the Cliff House. They're just +stunning--big as a grizzly, and bigger--climbing over a big rock or +swimming in the sea like an otter or muskrat. I'm sending you some +snells and hooks, such as you can't get at Casket. Use the fine +ones for pot-holes and the bigger ones for running water or falls. +Let me know when you've got 'em. Write to Lock Box No. 1290. +That's where dad's letters come. So no more at present. + +From yours truly, + +JIM BELCHER. + + +Not only did Leonidas know that this was not from the real Jim, but +he felt the vague contact of a new, charming, and original +personality that fascinated him. Of course, it was only natural +that one of HER friends--as he must be--should be equally +delightful. There was no jealousy in Leonidas's devotion; he knew +only a joy in this fellowship of admiration for her which he was +satisfied that the other boy must feel. And only the right kind of +boy could know the importance of his ravishing gift, and this Jim +was evidently "no slouch"! Yet, in Leonidas's new joy he did not +forget HER! He ran back to the stockade fence and lounged upon the +road in view of the house, but she did not appear. + +Leonidas lingered on the top of the hill, ostentatiously examining +a young hickory for a green switch, but to no effect. Then it +suddenly occurred to him that she might be staying in purposely, +and, perhaps a little piqued by her indifference, he ran off. +There was a mountain stream hard by, now dwindled in the summer +drouth to a mere trickling thread among the boulders, and there was +a certain "pot-hole" that he had long known. It was the lurking- +place of a phenomenal trout,--an almost historic fish in the +district, which had long resisted the attempt of such rude +sportsmen as miners, or even experts like himself. Few had seen +it, except as a vague, shadowy bulk in the four feet of depth and +gloom in which it hid; only once had Leonidas's quick eye feasted +on its fair proportions. On that memorable occasion Leonidas, +having exhausted every kind of lure of painted fly and living bait, +was rising from his knees behind the bank, when a pink five-cent +stamp dislodged from his pocket fluttered in the air, and descended +slowly upon the still pool. Horrified at his loss, Leonidas leaned +over to recover it, when there was a flash like lightning in the +black depths, a dozen changes of light and shadow on the surface, a +little whirling wave splashing against the side of the rock, and +the postage stamp was gone. More than that--for one instant the +trout remained visible, stationary and expectant! Whether it was +the instinct of sport, or whether the fish had detected a new, +subtle, and original flavor in the gum and paper, Leonidas never +knew. Alas! he had not another stamp; he was obliged to leave the +fish, but carried a brilliant idea away with him. Ever since then +he had cherished it--and another extra stamp in his pocket. And +now, with this strong but gossamer-like snell, this new hook, and +this freshly cut hickory rod, he would make the trial! + +But fate was against him! He had scarcely descended the narrow +trail to the pine-fringed margin of the stream before his quick ear +detected an unusual rustling through the adjacent underbrush, and +then a voice that startled him! It was HERS! In an instant all +thought of sport had fled. With a beating heart, half opened lips, +and uplifted lashes, Leonidas awaited the coming of his divinity +like a timorous virgin at her first tryst. + +But Mrs. Burroughs was clearly not in an equally responsive mood. +With her fair face reddened by the sun, the damp tendrils of her +unwound hair clinging to her forehead, and her smart little +slippers red with dust, there was also a querulous light in her +eyes, and a still more querulous pinch in her nostrils, as she +stood panting before him. + +"You tiresome boy!" she gasped, holding one little hand to her side +as she gripped her brambled skirt around her ankles with the other. +"Why didn't you wait? Why did you make me run all this distance +after you?" + +Leonidas timidly and poignantly protested. He had waited before +the house and on the hill; he thought she didn't want him. + +"Couldn't you see that THAT MAN kept me in?" she went on peevishiy. +"Haven't you sense enough to know that he suspects something, and +follows me everywhere, dogging my footsteps every time the post +comes in, and even going to the post-office himself, to make sure +that he sees all my letters? Well," she added impatiently, "have +you anything for me? Why don't you speak?" + +Crushed and remorseful, Leonidas produced her letter. She almost +snatched it from his hand, opened it, read a few lines, and her +face changed. A smile strayed from her eyes to her lips, and back +again. Leonidas's heart was lifted; she was so forgiving and so +beautiful! + +"Is he a boy, Mrs. Burroughs?" asked Leonidas shyly. + +"Well--not exactly," she said, her charming face all radiant again. +"He's older than you. What has he written to you?" + +Leonidas put his letter in her hand for reply. + +"I wish I could see him, you know," he said shyly. "That letter's +bully--it's just rats! I like him pow'ful." + +Mrs. Burroughs had skimmed through the letter, but not interestedly. + +"You mustn't like him more than you like me," she said laughingly, +caressing him with her voice and eyes, and even her straying hand. + +"I couldn't do that! I never could like anybody as I like you," +said. Leonidas gravely. There was such appalling truthfulness in +the boy's voice and frankly opened eyes that the woman could not +evade it, and was slightly disconcerted. But she presently started +up with a vexatious cry. "There's that wretch following me again, +I do believe," she said, staring at the hilltop. "Yes! Look, +Leon, he's turning to come down this trail. What's to be done? He +mustn't see me here!" + +Leonidas looked. It was indeed Mr. Burroughs; but he was evidently +only taking a short cut towards the Ridge, where his men were +working. Leonidas had seen him take it before. But it was the +principal trail on the steep hillside, and they must eventually +meet. A man might evade it by scrambling through the brush to a +lower and rougher trail; but a woman, never! But an idea had +seized Leonidas. "I can stop him," he said confidently to her. +"You just lie low here behind that rock till I come back. He +hasn't seen you yet." + +She had barely time to draw back before Leonidas darted down the +trail towards her husband. Yet, in her intense curiosity, she +leaned out the next moment to watch him. He paused at last, not +far from the approaching figure, and seemed to kneel down on the +trail. What was he doing? Her husband was still slowly advancing. +Suddenly he stopped. At the same moment she heard their two voices +in excited parley, and then, to her amazement, she saw her husband +scramble hurriedly down the trail to the lower level, and with an +occasional backward glance, hasten away until he had passed beyond +her view. + +She could scarcely realize her narrow escape when Leonidas stood by +her side. "How did you do it?" she said eagerly. + +"With a rattler!" said the boy gravely. + +"With a what?" + +"A rattlesnake--pizen snake, you know." + +"A rattlesnake?" she said, staring at Leonidas with a quick +snatching away of her skirts. + +The boy, who seemed to have forgotten her in his other abstraction +of adventure, now turned quickly, with devoted eyes and a +reassuring smile. + +"Yes; but I wouldn't let him hurt you," he said gently. + +"But what did you DO?" + +He looked at her curiously. "You won't be frightened if I show +you?" he said doubtfully. "There's nothin' to be afeerd of s'long +as you're with me," he added proudly. + +"Yes--that is"--she stammered, and then, her curiosity getting the +better of her fear, she added in a whisper: "Show me quick!" + +He led the way up the narrow trail until he stopped where he had +knelt before. It was a narrow, sunny ledge of rock, scarcely wide +enough for a single person to pass. He silently pointed to a cleft +in the rock, and kneeling down again, began to whistle in a soft, +fluttering way. There was a moment of suspense, and then she was +conscious of an awful gliding something,--a movement so measured +yet so exquisitely graceful that she stood enthralled. A narrow, +flattened, expressionless head was followed by a footlong strip of +yellow-barred scales; then there was a pause, and the head turned, +in a beautifully symmetrical half-circle, towards the whistler. +The whistling ceased; the snake, with half its body out of the +cleft, remained poised in air as if stiffened to stone. + +"There," said Leonidas quietly, "that's what Mr. Burroughs saw, and +that's WHY he scooted off the trail. I just called out William +Henry,--I call him William Henry, and he knows his name,--and then +I sang out to Mr. Burroughs what was up; and it was lucky I did, +for the next moment he'd have been on top of him and have been +struck, for rattlers don't give way to any one." + +"Oh, why didn't you let"-- She stopped herself quickly, but could +not stop the fierce glint in her eye nor the sharp curve in her +nostril. Luckily, Leonidas did not see this, being preoccupied +with his other graceful charmer, William Henry. + +"But how did you know it was here?" said Mrs. Burroughs, recovering +herself. + +"Fetched him here," said Leonidas briefly. + +"What in your hands?" she said, drawing back. + +"No! made him follow! I HAVE handled him, but it was after I'd +first made him strike his pizen out upon a stick. Ye know, after +he strikes four times he ain't got any pizen left. Then ye kin do +anythin' with him, and he knows it. He knows me, you bet! I've +bin three months trainin' him. Look! Don't be frightened," he +said, as Mrs. Burroughs drew hurriedly back; "see him mind me. Now +scoot home, William Henry." + +He accompanied the command with a slow, dominant movement of the +hickory rod he was carrying. The snake dropped its head, and slid +noiselessly out of the cleft across the trail and down the hill. + +"Thinks my rod is witch-hazel, which rattlers can't abide," +continued Leonidas, dropping into a boy's breathless abbreviated +speech. "Lives down your way--just back of your farm. Show ye +some day. Suns himself on a flat stone every day--always cold-- +never can get warm. Eh?" + +She had not spoken, but was gazing into space with a breathless +rigidity of attitude and a fixed look in her eye, not unlike the +motionless orbs of the reptile that had glided away. + +"Does anybody else know you keep him?" she asked. + +"Nary one. I never showed him to anybody but you," replied the +boy. + +"Don't! You must show me where he hides to-morrow," she said, in +her old laughing way. "And now, Leon, I must go back to the +house." + +"May I write to him--to Jim Belcher, Mrs. Burroughs?" said the boy +timidly. + +"Certainly. And come to me to-morrow with your letter--I will have +mine ready. Good-by." She stopped and glanced at the trail. "And +you say that if that man had kept on, the snake would have bitten +him?" + +"Sure pop!--if he'd trod on him--as he was sure to. The snake +wouldn't have known he didn't mean it. It's only natural," +continued Leonidas, with glowing partisanship for the gentle and +absent William Henry. "YOU wouldn't like to be trodden upon, Mrs. +Burroughs!" + +"No! I'd strike out!" she said quickly. She made a rapid motion +forward with her low forehead and level head, leaving it rigid the +next moment, so that it reminded him of the snake, and he laughed. +At which she laughed too, and tripped away. + +Leonidas went back and caught his trout. But even this triumph did +not remove a vague sense of disappointment which had come over him. +He had often pictured to himself a Heaven-sent meeting with her in +the woods, a walk with her, alone, where he could pick her the +rarest flowers and herbs and show her his woodland friends; and it +had only ended in this, and an exhibition of William Henry! He +ought to have saved HER from something, and not her husband. Yet +he had no ill-feeling for Burroughs, only a desire to circumvent +him, on behalf of the unprotected, as he would have baffled a hawk +or a wildcat. He went home in dismal spirits, but later that +evening constructed a boyish letter of thanks to the apocryphal +Belcher and told him all about--the trout! + +He brought her his letter the next day, and received hers to +inclose. She was pleasant, her own charming self again, but she +seemed more interested in other things than himself, as, for +instance, the docile William Henry, whose hiding-place he showed, +and whose few tricks she made him exhibit to her, and which the +gratified Leonidas accepted as a delicate form of flattery to +himself. But his yearning, innocent spirit detected a something +lacking, which he was too proud to admit even to himself. It was +his own fault; he ought to have waited for her, and not gone for +the trout! + +So a fortnight passed with an interchange of the vicarious letters, +and brief, hopeful, and disappointing meetings to Leonidas. To add +to his unhappiness, he was obliged to listen to sneering +disparagement of his goddess from his family, and criticisms which, +happily, his innocence did not comprehend. It was his own mother +who accused her of shamefully "making up" to the good-looking +expressman at church last Sunday, and declared that Burroughs ought +to "look after that wife of his,"--two statements which the simple +Leonidas could not reconcile. He had seen the incident, and only +thought her more lovely than ever. Why should not the expressman +think so too? And yet the boy was not happy; something intruded +upon his sports, upon his books, making them dull and vapid, and +yet that something was she! He grew pale and preoccupied. If he +had only some one in whom to confide--some one who could explain +his hopes and fears. That one was nearer than he thought! + +It was quite three weeks since the rattlesnake incident, and he was +wandering moodily over Casket Ridge. He was near the Casket, that +abrupt upheaval of quartz and gneiss, shaped like a coffer, from +which the mountain took its name. It was a favorite haunt of +Leonidas, one of whose boyish superstitions was that it contained a +treasure of gold, and one of whose brightest dreams had been that +he should yet discover it. This he did not do to-day, but looking +up from the rocks that he was listlessly examining, he made the +almost as thrilling discovery that near him on the trail was a +distinguished-looking stranger. + +He was bestriding a shapely mustang, which well became his handsome +face and slight, elegant figure, and he was looking at Leonidas +with an amused curiosity and a certain easy assurance that were +difficult to withstand. It was with the same fascinating self- +confidence of smile, voice, and manner that he rode up to the boy, +and leaning lightly over his saddle, said with exaggerated +politeness: "I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. +Leonidas Boone?" + +The rising color in Leonidas's face was apparently a sufficient +answer to the stranger, for he continued smilingly, "Then permit me +to introduce myself as Mr. James Belcher. As you perceive, I have +grown considerably since you last saw me. In fact, I've done +nothing else. It's surprising what a fellow can do when he sets +his mind on one thing. And then, you know, they're always telling +you that San Francisco is a 'growing place.' That accounts for +it!" + +Leonidas, dazed, dazzled, but delighted, showed all his white teeth +in a shy laugh. At which the enchanting stranger leaped from his +horse like a very boy, drew his arm through the rein, and going up +to Leonidas, lifted the boy's straw hat from his head and ran his +fingers through his curls. There was nothing original in that-- +everybody did that to him as a preliminary to conversation. But +when this ingenuous fine gentleman put his own Panama hat on +Leonidas's head, and clapped Leonidas's torn straw on his own, and, +passing his arm through the boy's, began to walk on with him, +Leonidas's simple heart went out to him at once. + +"And now, Leon," said the delightful stranger, "let's you and me +have a talk. There's a nice cool spot under these laurels; I'll +stake out Pepita, and we'll just lie off there and gab, and not +care if school keeps or not." + +"But you know you ain't really Jim Belcher," said the boy shyly. + +"I'm as good a man as he is any day, whoever I am," said the +stranger, with humorous defiance, "and can lick him out of his +boots, whoever HE is. That ought to satisfy you. But if you want +my certificate, here's your own letter, old man," he said, +producing Leonidas's last scrawl from his pocket. + +"And HERS?" said the boy cautiously. + +The stranger's face changed a little. "And HERS," he repeated +gravely, showing a little pink note which Leonidas recognized as +one of Mrs. Burroughs's inclosures. The boy was silent until they +reached the laurels, where the stranger tethered his horse and then +threw himself in an easy attitude beneath the tree, with the back +of his head upon his clasped hands. Leonidas could see his curved +brown mustaches and silky lashes that were almost as long, and +thought him the handsomest man he had ever beheld. + +"Well, Leon," said the stranger, stretching himself out comfortably +and pulling the boy down beside him, "how are things going on the +Casket? All serene, eh?" + +The inquiry so dismally recalled Leonidas's late feelings that his +face clouded, and he involuntarily sighed. The stranger instantly +shifted his head and gazed curiously at him. Then he took the +boy's sunburnt hand in his own, and held it a moment. "Well, go +on," he said. + +"Well, Mr.--Mr.--I can't go on--I won't!" said Leonidas, with a +sudden fit of obstinacy. "I don't know what to call you." + +"Call me 'Jack'--'Jack Hamlin' when you're not in a hurry. Ever +heard of me before?" he added, suddenly turning his head towards +Leonidas. + +The boy shook his head. "No." + +Mr. Jack Hamlin lifted his lashes in affected expostulation to the +skies. "And this is Fame!" he murmured audibly. + +But this Leonidas did not comprehend. Nor could he understand why +the stranger, who clearly must have come to see HER, should not ask +about her, should not rush to seek her, but should lie back there +all the while so contentedly on the grass. HE wouldn't. He half +resented it, and then it occurred to him that this fine gentleman +was like himself--shy. Who could help being so before such an +angel? HE would help him on. + +And so, shyly at first, but bit by bit emboldened by a word or two +from Jack, he began to talk of her--of her beauty--of her kindness-- +of his own unworthiness--of what she had said and done--until, +finding in this gracious stranger the vent his pent-up feelings so +long had sought, he sang then and there the little idyl of his +boyish life. He told of his decline in her affections after his +unpardonable sin in keeping her waiting while he went for the +trout, and added the miserable mistake of the rattlesnake episode. +"For it was a mistake, Mr. Hamlin. I oughtn't to have let a lady +like that know anything about snakes--just because I happen to know +them." + +"It WAS an awful slump, Lee," said Hamlin gravely. "Get a woman +and a snake together--and where are you? Think of Adam and Eve and +the serpent, you know." + +"But it wasn't that way," said the boy earnestly. "And I want to +tell you something else that's just makin' me sick, Mr. Hamlin. +You know I told you William Henry lives down at the bottom of +Burroughs's garden, and how I showed Mrs. Burroughs his tricks! +Well, only two days ago I was down there looking for him, and +couldn't find him anywhere. There's a sort of narrow trail from +the garden to the hill, a short cut up to the Ridge, instead o' +going by their gate. It's just the trail any one would take in a +hurry, or if they didn't want to be seen from the road. Well! I +was looking this way and that for William Henry, and whistlin' for +him, when I slipped on to the trail. There, in the middle of it, +was an old bucket turned upside down--just the thing a man would +kick away or a woman lift up. Well, Mr. Hamlin, I kicked it away, +and"--the boy stopped, with rounded eyes and bated breath, and +added--"I just had time to give one jump and save myself! For +under that pail, cramped down so he couldn't get out, and just +bilin' over with rage, and chockful of pizen, was William Henry! +If it had been anybody else less spry, they'd have got bitten,--and +that's just what the sneak who put it there knew." + +Mr. Hamlin uttered an exclamation under his breath, and rose to his +feet. + +"What did you say?" asked the boy quickly. + +"Nothing," said Mr. Hamlin. + +But it had sounded to Leonidas like an oath. + +Mr. Hamlin walked a few steps, as if stretching his limbs, and then +said: "And you think Burroughs would have been bitten?" + +"Why, no!" said Leonidas in astonished indignation; "of course not-- +not BURROUGHS. It would have been poor MRS. Burroughs. For, of +course, HE set that trap for her--don't you see? Who else would do +it?" + +"Of course, of course! Certainly," said Mr. Hamlin coolly. "Of +course, as you say, HE set the trap--yes--you just hang on to that +idea." + +But something in Mr. Hamlin's manner, and a peculiar look in his +eye, did not satisfy Leonidas. "Are you going to see her now?" he +said eagerly. "I can show you the house, and then run in and tell +her you're outside in the laurels." + +"Not just yet," said Mr. Hamlin, laying his hand on the boy's head +after having restored his own hat. "You see, I thought of giving +her a surprise. A big surprise!" he added slowly. After a pause, +he went on: "Did you tell her what you had seen?" + +"Of course I did," said Leonidas reproachfully. "Did you think I +was going to let her get bit? It might have killed her." + +"And it might not have been an unmixed pleasure for William Henry. +I mean," said Mr. Hamlin gravely, correcting himself, "YOU would +never have forgiven him. But what did she say?" + +The boy's face clouded. "She thanked me and said it was very +thoughtful--and kind--though it might have been only an accident"-- +he stammered--"and then she said perhaps I was hanging round and +coming there a little too much lately, and that as Burroughs was +very watchful, I'd better quit for two or three days." The tears +were rising to his eyes, but by putting his two clenched fists into +his pockets, he managed to hold them down. Perhaps Mr. Hamlin's +soft hand on his head assisted him. Mr. Hamlin took from his +pocket a notebook, and tearing out a leaf, sat down again and began +to write on his knee. After a pause, Leonidas said,-- + +"Was you ever in love, Mr. Hamlin?" + +"Never," said Mr. Hamlin, quietly continuing to write. "But, now +you speak of it, it's a long-felt want in my nature that I intend +to supply some day. But not until I've made my pile. And don't +YOU either." He continued writing, for it was this gentleman's +peculiarity to talk without apparently the slightest concern +whether anybody else spoke, whether he was listened to, or whether +his remarks were at all relevant to the case. Yet he was always +listened to for that reason. When he had finished writing, he +folded up the paper, put it in an envelope, and addressed it. + +"Shall I take it to her?" said Leonidas eagerly. + +"It's not for HER; it's for him--Mr. Burroughs," said Mr. Hamlin +quietly. + +The boy drew back. "To get him out of the way," added Hamlin +explanatorily. "When he gets it, lightning wouldn't keep him here. +Now, how to send it," he said thoughtfully. + +"You might leave it at the post-office," said Leonidas timidly. +"He always goes there to watch his wife's letters." + +For the first time in their interview Mr. Hamlin distinctly +laughed. + +"Your head is level, Leo, and I'll do it. Now the best thing you +can do is to follow Mrs. Burroughs's advice. Quit going to the +house for a day or two." He walked towards his horse. The boy's +face sank, but he kept up bravely. "And will I see you again?" he +said wistfully. + +Mr. Hamlin lowered his face so near the boy's that Leonidas could +see himself in the brown depths of Mr. Hamlin's eyes. "I hope you +will," he said gravely. He mounted, shook the boy's hand, and rode +away in the lengthening shadows. Then Leonidas walked sadly home. + +There was no need for him to keep his promise; for the next morning +the family were stirred by the announcement that Mr. and Mrs. +Burroughs had left Casket Ridge that night by the down stage for +Sacramento, and that the house was closed. There were various +rumors concerning the reason of this sudden departure, but only one +was persistent, and borne out by the postmaster. It was that Mr. +Burroughs had received that afternoon an anonymous note that his +wife was about to elope with the notorious San Francisco gambler, +Jack Hamlin. + +But Leonidas Boone, albeit half understanding, kept his miserable +secret with a still hopeful and trustful heart. It grieved him a +little that William Henry was found a few days later dead, with his +head crushed. Yet it was not until years later, when he had made a +successful "prospect" on Casket Ridge, that he met Mr. Hamlin in +San Francisco, and knew how he had played the part of Mercury upon +that "heaven-kissing hill." + + + +COLONEL STARBOTTLE FOR THE PLAINTIFF + + +It had been a day of triumph for Colonel Starbottle. First, for +his personality, as it would have been difficult to separate the +Colonel's achievements from his individuality; second, for his +oratorical abilities as a sympathetic pleader; and third, for his +functions as the leading legal counsel for the Eureka Ditch Company +versus the State of California. On his strictly legal performances +in this issue I prefer not to speak; there were those who denied +them, although the jury had accepted them in the face of the ruling +of the half amused, half cynical Judge himself. For an hour they +had laughed with the Colonel, wept with him, been stirred to +personal indignation or patriotic exaltation by his passionate and +lofty periods,--what else could they do than give him their +verdict? If it was alleged by some that the American eagle, Thomas +Jefferson, and the Resolutions of '98 had nothing whatever to do +with the contest of a ditch company over a doubtfully worded +legislative document; that wholesale abuse of the State Attorney +and his political motives had not the slightest connection with the +legal question raised--it was, nevertheless, generally accepted +that the losing party would have been only too glad to have the +Colonel on their side. And Colonel Starbottle knew this, as, +perspiring, florid, and panting, he rebuttoned the lower buttons of +his blue frock-coat, which had become loosed in an oratorical +spasm, and readjusted his old-fashioned, spotless shirt frill above +it as he strutted from the court-room amidst the handshakings and +acclamations of his friends. + +And here an unprecedented thing occurred. The Colonel absolutely +declined spirituous refreshment at the neighboring Palmetto Saloon, +and declared his intention of proceeding directly to his office in +the adjoining square. Nevertheless, the Colonel quitted the +building alone, and apparently unarmed, except for his faithful +gold-headed stick, which hung as usual from his forearm. The crowd +gazed after him with undisguised admiration of this new evidence of +his pluck. It was remembered also that a mysterious note had been +handed to him at the conclusion of his speech,--evidently a +challenge from the State Attorney. It was quite plain that the +Colonel--a practiced duelist--was hastening home to answer it. + +But herein they were wrong. The note was in a female hand, and +simply requested the Colonel to accord an interview with the writer +at the Colonel's office as soon as he left the court. But it was +an engagement that the Colonel--as devoted to the fair sex as he +was to the "code"--was no less prompt in accepting. He flicked +away the dust from his spotless white trousers and varnished boots +with his handkerchief, and settled his black cravat under his Byron +collar as he neared his office. He was surprised, however, on +opening the door of his private office, to find his visitor already +there; he was still more startled to find her somewhat past middle +age and plainly attired. But the Colonel was brought up in a +school of Southern politeness, already antique in the republic, and +his bow of courtesy belonged to the epoch of his shirt frill and +strapped trousers. No one could have detected his disappointment +in his manner, albeit his sentences were short and incomplete. But +the Colonel's colloquial speech was apt to be fragmentary +incoherencies of his larger oratorical utterances. + +"A thousand pardons--for--er--having kept a lady waiting--er! +But--er--congratulations of friends--and--er--courtesy due to +them--er--interfered with--though perhaps only heightened--by +procrastination--the pleasure of--ha!" And the Colonel completed +his sentence with a gallant wave of his fat but white and well-kept +hand. + +"Yes! I came to see you along o' that speech of yours. I was in +court. When I heard you gettin' it off on that jury, I says to +myself, 'That's the kind o' lawyer I want. A man that's flowery +and convincin'! Just the man to take up our case." + +"Ah! It's a matter of business, I see," said the Colonel, inwardly +relieved, but externally careless. "And--er--may I ask the nature +of the case?" + +"Well! it's a breach-o'-promise suit," said the visitor calmly. + +If the Colonel had been surprised before, he was now really +startled, and with an added horror that required all his politeness +to conceal. Breach-of-promise cases were his peculiar aversion. +He had always held them to be a kind of litigation which could have +been obviated by the prompt killing of the masculine offender--in +which case he would have gladly defended the killer. But a suit +for damages,--DAMAGES!--with the reading of love-letters before a +hilarious jury and court, was against all his instincts. His +chivalry was outraged; his sense of humor was small, and in the +course of his career he had lost one or two important cases through +an unexpected development of this quality in a jury. + +The woman had evidently noticed his hesitation, but mistook its +cause. "It ain't me--but my darter." + +The Colonel recovered his politeness. "Ah! I am relieved, my dear +madam! I could hardly conceive a man ignorant enough to--er--er-- +throw away such evident good fortune--or base enough to deceive the +trustfulness of womanhood--matured and experienced only in the +chivalry of our sex, ha!" + +The woman smiled grimly. "Yes!--it's my darter, Zaidee Hooker--so +ye might spare some of them pretty speeches for HER--before the +jury." + +The Colonel winced slightly before this doubtful prospect, but +smiled. "Ha! Yes!--certainly--the jury. But--er--my dear lady, +need we go as far as that? Can not this affair be settled--er--out +of court? Could not this--er--individual--be admonished--told that +he must give satisfaction--personal satisfaction--for his dastardly +conduct--to--er--near relative--or even valued personal friend? +The--er--arrangements necessary for that purpose I myself would +undertake." + +He was quite sincere; indeed, his small black eyes shone with that +fire which a pretty woman or an "affair of honor" could alone +kindle. The visitor stared vacantly at him, and said slowly, "And +what good is that goin' to do US?" + +"Compel him to--er--perform his promise," said the Colonel, leaning +back in his chair. + +"Ketch him doin' it!" she exclaimed scornfully. "No--that ain't +wot we're after. We must make him PAY! Damages--and nothin' short +o' THAT." + +The Colonel bit his lip. "I suppose," he said gloomily, "you have +documentary evidence--written promises and protestations--er--er-- +love-letters, in fact?" + +"No--nary a letter! Ye see, that's jest it--and that's where YOU +come in. You've got to convince that jury yourself. You've got to +show what it is--tell the whole story your own way. Lord! to a man +like you that's nothin'." + +Startling as this admission might have been to any other lawyer, +Starbottle was absolutely relieved by it. The absence of any +mirth-provoking correspondence, and the appeal solely to his own +powers of persuasion, actually struck his fancy. He lightly put +aside the compliment with a wave of his white hand. + +"Of course," he said confidently, "there is strongly presumptive +and corroborative evidence? Perhaps you can give me--er--a brief +outline of the affair?" + +"Zaidee kin do that straight enough, I reckon," said the woman; +"what I want to know first is, kin you take the case?" + +The Colonel did not hesitate; his curiosity was piqued. "I +certainly can. I have no doubt your daughter will put me in +possession of sufficient facts and details--to constitute what we +call--er--a brief." + +"She kin be brief enough--or long enough--for the matter of that," +said the woman, rising. The Colonel accepted this implied +witticism with a smile. + +"And when may I have the pleasure of seeing her?" he asked +politely. + +"Well, I reckon as soon as I can trot out and call her. She's just +outside, meanderin' in the road--kinder shy, ye know, at first." + +She walked to the door. The astounded Colonel nevertheless +gallantly accompanied her as she stepped out into the street and +called shrilly, "You Zaidee!" + +A young girl here apparently detached herself from a tree and the +ostentatious perusal of an old election poster, and sauntered down +towards the office door. Like her mother, she was plainly dressed; +unlike her, she had a pale, rather refined face, with a demure +mouth and downcast eyes. This was all the Colonel saw as he bowed +profoundly and led the way into his office, for she accepted his +salutations without lifting her head. He helped her gallantly to a +chair, on which she seated herself sideways, somewhat ceremoniously, +with her eyes following the point of her parasol as she traced a +pattern on the carpet. A second chair offered to the mother that +lady, however, declined. "I reckon to leave you and Zaidee together +to talk it out," she said; turning to her daughter, she added, "Jest +you tell him all, Zaidee," and before the Colonel could rise again, +disappeared from the room. In spite of his professional experience, +Starbottle was for a moment embarrassed. The young girl, however, +broke the silence without looking up. + +"Adoniram K. Hotchkiss," she began, in a monotonous voice, as if it +were a recitation addressed to the public, "first began to take +notice of me a year ago. Arter that--off and on"-- + +"One moment," interrupted the astounded Colonel; "do you mean +Hotchkiss the President of the Ditch Company?" He had recognized +the name of a prominent citizen--a rigid, ascetic, taciturn, +middle-aged man--a deacon--and more than that, the head of the +company he had just defended. It seemed inconceivable. + +"That's him," she continued, with eyes still fixed on the parasol +and without changing her monotonous tone--"off and on ever since. +Most of the time at the Free-Will Baptist Church--at morning +service, prayer-meetings, and such. And at home--outside--er--in +the road." + +"Is it this gentleman--Mr. Adoniram K. Hotchkiss--who--er--promised +marriage?" stammered the Colonel. + +"Yes." + +The Colonel shifted uneasily in his chair. "Most extraordinary! +for--you see--my dear young lady--this becomes--a--er--most +delicate affair." + +"That's what maw said," returned the young woman simply, yet with +the faintest smile playing around her demure lips and downcast +cheek. + +"I mean," said the Colonel, with a pained yet courteous smile, +"that this--er--gentleman--is in fact--er--one of my clients." + +"That's what maw said too, and of course your knowing him will make +it all the easier for you." + +A slight flush crossed the Colonel's cheek as he returned quickly +and a little stiffly, "On the contrary--er--it may make it +impossible for me to--er--act in this matter." + +The girl lifted her eyes. The Colonel held his breath as the long +lashes were raised to his level. Even to an ordinary observer that +sudden revelation of her eyes seemed to transform her face with +subtle witchery. They were large, brown, and soft, yet filled with +an extraordinary penetration and prescience. They were the eyes of +an experienced woman of thirty fixed in the face of a child. What +else the Colonel saw there Heaven only knows! He felt his inmost +secrets plucked from him--his whole soul laid bare--his vanity, +belligerency, gallantry--even his mediaeval chivalry, penetrated, +and yet illuminated, in that single glance. And when the eyelids +fell again, he felt that a greater part of himself had been +swallowed up in them. + +"I beg your pardon," he said hurriedly. "I mean--this matter may +be arranged--er--amicably. My interest with--and as you wisely +say--my--er--knowledge of my client--er--Mr. Hotchkiss--may effect-- +a compromise." + +"And DAMAGES," said the young girl, readdressing her parasol, as if +she had never looked up. + +The Colonel winced. "And--er--undoubtedly COMPENSATION--if you do +not press a fulfillment of the promise. Unless," he said, with an +attempted return to his former easy gallantry, which, however, the +recollection of her eyes made difficult, "it is a question of--er-- +the affections." + +"Which?" asked his fair client softly. + +"If you still love him?" explained the Colonel, actually blushing. + +Zaidee again looked up; again taking the Colonel's breath away with +eyes that expressed not only the fullest perception of what he had +SAID, but of what he thought and had not said, and with an added +subtle suggestion of what he might have thought. "That's tellin'," +she said, dropping her long lashes again. + +The Colonel laughed vacantly. Then feeling himself growing +imbecile, he forced an equally weak gravity. "Pardon me--I +understand there are no letters; may I know the way in which he +formulated his declaration and promises?" + +"Hymn-books." + +"I beg your pardon," said the mystified lawyer. + +"Hymn-books--marked words in them with pencil--and passed 'em on to +me," repeated Zaidee. "Like 'love,' 'dear,' 'precious,' 'sweet,' +and 'blessed,'" she added, accenting each word with a push of her +parasol on the carpet. "Sometimes a whole line outer Tate and +Brady--and Solomon's Song, you know, and sich." + +"I believe," said the Colonel loftily, "that the--er--phrases of +sacred psalmody lend themselves to the language of the affections. +But in regard to the distinct promise of marriage--was there--er-- +no OTHER expression?" + +"Marriage Service in the prayer-book--lines and words outer that-- +all marked," Zaidee replied. + +The Colonel nodded naturally and approvingly. "Very good. Were +others cognizant of this? Were there any witnesses?" + +"Of course not," said the girl. "Only me and him. It was +generally at church-time--or prayer-meeting. Once, in passing the +plate, he slipped one o' them peppermint lozenges with the letters +stamped on it 'I love you' for me to take." + +The Colonel coughed slightly. "And you have the lozenge?" + +"I ate it." + +"Ah," said the Colonel. After a pause he added delicately, "But +were these attentions--er--confined to--er--sacred precincts? Did +he meet you elsewhere?" + +"Useter pass our house on the road," returned the girl, dropping +into her monotonous recital, "and useter signal." + +"Ah, signal?" repeated the Colonel approvingly. + +"Yes! He'd say 'Keerow,' and I'd say 'Keeree.' Suthing like a +bird, you know." + +Indeed, as she lifted her voice in imitation of the call, the +Colonel thought it certainly very sweet and birdlike. At least as +SHE gave it. With his remembrance of the grim deacon he had doubts +as to the melodiousness of HIS utterance. He gravely made her +repeat it. + +"And after that signal?" he added suggestively. + +"He'd pass on." + +The Colonel again coughed slightly, and tapped his desk with his +penholder. + +"Were there any endearments--er--caresses--er--such as taking your +hand--er--clasping your waist?" he suggested, with a gallant yet +respectful sweep of his white hand and bowing of his head; "er-- +slight pressure of your fingers in the changes of a dance--I mean," +he corrected himself, with an apologetic cough--"in the passing of +the plate?" + +"No; he was not what you'd call 'fond,'" returned the girl. + +"Ah! Adoniram K. Hotchkiss was not 'fond' in the ordinary +acceptance of the word," noted the Colonel, with professional +gravity. + +She lifted her disturbing eyes, and again absorbed his in her own. +She also said "Yes," although her eyes in their mysterious +prescience of all he was thinking disclaimed the necessity of any +answer at all. He smiled vacantly. There was a long pause. On +which she slowly disengaged her parasol from the carpet pattern, +and stood up. + +"I reckon that's about all," she said. + +"Er--yes--but one moment," began the Colonel vaguely. He would +have liked to keep her longer, but with her strange premonition of +him he felt powerless to detain her, or explain his reason for +doing so. He instinctively knew she had told him all; his +professional judgment told him that a more hopeless case had never +come to his knowledge. Yet he was not daunted, only embarrassed. +"No matter," he said. "Of course I shall have to consult with you +again." + +Her eyes again answered that she expected he would, and she added +simply, "When?" + +"In the course of a day or two;" he replied quickly. "I will send +you word." + +She turned to go. In his eagerness to open the door for her, he +upset his chair, and with some confusion, that was actually +youthful, he almost impeded her movements in the hall, and knocked +his broad-brimmed Panama hat from his bowing hand in a final +gallant sweep. Yet as her small, trim, youthful figure, with its +simple Leghorn straw hat confined by a blue bow under her round +chin, passed away before him, she looked more like a child than +ever. + +The Colonel spent that afternoon in making diplomatic inquiries. +He found his youthful client was the daughter of a widow who had a +small ranch on the cross-roads, near the new Free-Will Baptist +Church--the evident theatre of this pastoral. They led a secluded +life, the girl being little known in the town, and her beauty and +fascination apparently not yet being a recognized fact. The Colonel +felt a pleasurable relief at this, and a general satisfaction he +could not account for. His few inquiries concerning Mr. Hotchkiss +only confirmed his own impressions of the alleged lover,--a +serious-minded, practically abstracted man, abstentive of youthful +society, and the last man apparently capable of levity of the +affections or serious flirtation. The Colonel was mystified, but +determined of purpose, whatever that purpose might have been. + +The next day he was at his office at the same hour. He was alone-- +as usual--the Colonel's office being really his private lodgings, +disposed in connecting rooms, a single apartment reserved for +consultation. He had no clerk, his papers and briefs being taken +by his faithful body-servant and ex-slave "Jim" to another firm who +did his office work since the death of Major Stryker, the Colonel's +only law partner, who fell in a duel some years previous. With a +fine constancy the Colonel still retained his partner's name on his +doorplate, and, it was alleged by the superstitious, kept a certain +invincibility also through the 'manes' of that lamented and +somewhat feared man. + +The Colonel consulted his watch, whose heavy gold case still showed +the marks of a providential interference with a bullet destined for +its owner, and replaced it with some difficulty and shortness of +breath in his fob. At the same moment he heard a step in the +passage, and the door opened to Adoniram K. Hotchkiss. The Colonel +was impressed; he had a duelist's respect for punctuality. + +The man entered with a nod and the expectant inquiring look of a +busy man. As his feet crossed that sacred threshold the Colonel +became all courtesy; he placed a chair for his visitor, and took +his hat from his half reluctant hand. He then opened a cupboard +and brought out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. + +"A--er--slight refreshment, Mr. Hotchkiss," he suggested politely. + +"I never drink," replied Hotchkiss, with the severe attitude of a +total abstainer. + +"Ah--er--not the finest Bourbon whiskey, selected by a Kentucky +friend? No? Pardon me! A cigar, then--the mildest Havana." + +"I do not use tobacco nor alcohol in any form," repeated Hotchkiss +ascetically. "I have no foolish weaknesses." + +The Colonel's moist, beady eyes swept silently over his client's +sallow face. He leaned back comfortably in his chair, and half +closing his eyes as in dreamy reminiscence, said slowly: "Your +reply, Mr. Hotchkiss, reminds me of--er--sing'lar circumstance +that--er--occurred, in point of fact--at the St. Charles Hotel, New +Orleans. Pinkey Hornblower--personal friend--invited Senator +Doolittle to join him in social glass. Received, sing'larly +enough, reply similar to yours. 'Don't drink nor smoke?' said +Pinkey. 'Gad, sir, you must be mighty sweet on the ladies.' Ha!" +The Colonel paused long enough to allow the faint flush to pass +from Hotchkiss's cheek, and went on, half closing his eyes: "'I +allow no man, sir, to discuss my personal habits,' declared +Doolittle, over his shirt collar. 'Then I reckon shootin' must he +one of those habits,' said Pinkey coolly. Both men drove out on +the Shell Road back of cemetery next morning. Pinkey put bullet at +twelve paces through Doolittle's temple. Poor Doo never spoke +again. Left three wives and seven children, they say--two of 'em +black." + +"I got a note from you this morning," said Hotchkiss, with badly +concealed impatience. "I suppose in reference to our case. You +have taken judgment, I believe." + +The Colonel, without replying, slowly filled a glass of whiskey and +water. For a moment he held it dreamily before him, as if still +engaged in gentle reminiscences called up by the act. Then tossing +it off, he wiped his lips with a large white handkerchief, and +leaning back comfortably in his chair, said, with a wave of his +hand, "The interview I requested, Mr. Hotchkiss, concerns a +subject--which I may say is--er--er--at present NOT of a public or +business nature--although LATER it might become--er--er--both. It +is an affair of some--er--delicacy." + +The Colonel paused, and Mr. Hotchkiss regarded him with increased +impatience. The Colonel, however, continued, with unchanged +deliberation: "It concerns--er--er--a young lady--a beautiful, +high-souled creature, sir, who, apart from her personal loveliness-- +er--er--I may say is of one of the first families of Missouri, +and--er--not remotely connected by marriage with one of--er--er--my +boyhood's dearest friends." The latter, I grieve to say, was a +pure invention of the Colonel's--an oratorical addition to the +scanty information he had obtained the previous day. "The young +lady," he continued blandly, "enjoys the further distinction of +being the object of such attention from you as would make this +interview--really--a confidential matter--er--er among friends and-- +er--er--relations in present and future. I need not say that the +lady I refer to is Miss Zaidee Juno Hooker, only daughter of Almira +Ann Hooker, relict of Jefferson Brown Hooker, formerly of Boone +County, Kentucky, and latterly of--er--Pike County, Missouri." + +The sallow, ascetic hue of Mr. Hotchkiss's face had passed through +a livid and then a greenish shade, and finally settled into a +sullen red. "What's all this about?" he demanded roughly. + +The least touch of belligerent fire came into Starbottle's eye, but +his bland courtesy did not change. "I believe," he said politely, +"I have made myself clear as between--er--gentlemen, though perhaps +not as clear as I should to--er--er--jury." + +Mr. Hotchkiss was apparently struck with some significance in the +lawyer's reply. "I don't know," he said, in a lower and more +cautious voice, "what you mean by what you call 'my attentions' +to--any one--or how it concerns you. I have not exchanged half a +dozen words with--the person you name--have never written her a +line--nor even called at her house." + +He rose with an assumption of ease, pulled down his waistcoat, +buttoned his coat, and took up his hat. The Colonel did not move. + +"I believe I have already indicated my meaning in what I have +called 'your attentions,'" said the Colonel blandly, "and given you +my 'concern' for speaking as--er--er--mutual friend. As to YOUR +statement of your relations with Miss Hooker, I may state that it +is fully corroborated by the statement of the young lady herself in +this very office yesterday." + +"Then what does this impertinent nonsense mean? Why am I summoned +here?" demanded Hotchkiss furiously. + +"Because," said the Colonel deliberately, "that statement is +infamously--yes, damnably to your discredit, sir!" + +Mr. Hotchkiss was here seized by one of those impotent and +inconsistent rages which occasionally betray the habitually +cautious and timid man. He caught up the Colonel's stick, which +was lying on the table. At the same moment the Colonel, without +any apparent effort, grasped it by the handle. To Mr. Hotchkiss's +astonishment, the stick separated in two pieces, leaving the handle +and about two feet of narrow glittering steel in the Colonel's +hand. The man recoiled, dropping the useless fragment. The +Colonel picked it up, fitted the shining blade in it, clicked the +spring, and then rising with a face of courtesy yet of unmistakably +genuine pain, and with even a slight tremor in his voice, said +gravely,-- + +"Mr. Hotchkiss, I owe you a thousand apologies, sir, that--er--a +weapon should be drawn by me--even through your own inadvertence-- +under the sacred protection of my roof, and upon an unarmed man. I +beg your pardon, sir, and I even withdraw the expressions which +provoked that inadvertence. Nor does this apology prevent you from +holding me responsible--personally responsible--ELSEWHERE for an +indiscretion committed in behalf of a lady--my--er--client." + +"Your client? Do you mean you have taken her case? You, the +counsel for the Ditch Company?" asked Mr. Hotchkiss, in trembling +indignation. + +"Having won YOUR case, sir," replied the Colonel coolly, "the--er-- +usages of advocacy do not prevent me from espousing the cause of +the weak and unprotected." + +"We shall see, sir," said Hotchkiss, grasping the handle of the +door and backing into the passage. "There are other lawyers who"-- + +"Permit me to see you out," interrupted the Colonel, rising +politely. + +--"will be ready to resist the attacks of blackmail," continued +Hotchkiss, retreating along the passage. + +"And then you will be able to repeat your remarks to me IN THE +STREET," continued the Colonel, bowing, as he persisted in +following his visitor to the door. + +But here Mr. Hotchkiss quickly slammed it behind him, and hurried +away. The Colonel returned to his office, and sitting down, took a +sheet of letter-paper bearing the inscription "Starbottle and +Stryker, Attorneys and Counselors," and wrote the following lines:-- + + +HOOKER versus HOTCHKISS. + +DEAR MADAM,--Having had a visit from the defendant in above, we +should be pleased to have an interview with you at two P. M. +to-morrow. + +Your obedient servants, + +STARBOTTLE AND STRYKER. + + +This he sealed and dispatched by his trusted servant Jim, and then +devoted a few moments to reflection. It was the custom of the +Colonel to act first, and justify the action by reason afterwards. + +He knew that Hotchkiss would at once lay the matter before rival +counsel. He knew that they would advise him that Miss Hooker had +"no case"--that she would be nonsuited on her own evidence, and he +ought not to compromise, but be ready to stand trial. He believed, +however, that Hotchkiss feared such exposure, and although his own +instincts had been at first against this remedy, he was now +instinctively in favor of it. He remembered his own power with a +jury; his vanity and his chivalry alike approved of this heroic +method; he was bound by no prosaic facts--he had his own theory of +the case, which no mere evidence could gainsay. In fact, Mrs. +Hooker's admission that he was to "tell the story in his own way" +actually appeared to him an inspiration and a prophecy. + +Perhaps there was something else, due possibly to the lady's +wonderful eyes, of which he had thought much. Yet it was not her +simplicity that affected him solely; on the contrary, it was her +apparent intelligent reading of the character of her recreant +lover--and of his own! Of all the Colonel's previous "light" or +"serious" loves, none had ever before flattered him in that way. +And it was this, combined with the respect which he had held for +their professional relations, that precluded his having a more +familiar knowledge of his client, through serious questioning or +playful gallantry. I am not sure it was not part of the charm to +have a rustic femme incomprise as a client. + +Nothing could exceed the respect with which he greeted her as she +entered his office the next day. He even affected not to notice +that she had put on her best clothes, and he made no doubt appeared +as when she had first attracted the mature yet faithless attentions +of Deacon Hotchkiss at church. A white virginal muslin was belted +around her slim figure by a blue ribbon, and her Leghorn hat was +drawn around her oval cheek by a bow of the same color. She had a +Southern girl's narrow feet, encased in white stockings and kid +slippers, which were crossed primly before her as she sat in a +chair, supporting her arm by her faithful parasol planted firmly on +the floor. A faint odor of southernwood exhaled from her, and, +oddly enough, stirred the Colonel with a far-off recollection of a +pine-shaded Sunday-school on a Georgia hillside, and of his first +love, aged ten, in a short starched frock. Possibly it was the +same recollection that revived something of the awkwardness he had +felt then. + +He, however, smiled vaguely, and sitting down, coughed slightly, +and placed his finger-tips together. "I have had an--er--interview +with Mr. Hotchkiss, but--I--er--regret to say there seems to be no +prospect of--er--compromise." + +He paused, and to his surprise her listless "company" face lit up +with an adorable smile. "Of course!--ketch him!" she said. "Was +he mad when you told him?" She put her knees comfortably together +and leaned forward for a reply. + +For all that, wild horses could not have torn from the Colonel a +word about Hotchkiss's anger. "He expressed his intention of +employing counsel--and defending a suit," returned the Colonel, +affably basking in her smile. + +She dragged her chair nearer his desk. "Then you'll fight him +tooth and nail?" she asked eagerly; "you'll show him up? You'll +tell the whole story your own way? You'll give him fits?--and +you'll make him pay? Sure?" she went on breathlessly. + +"I--er--will," said the Colonel, almost as breathlessly. + +She caught his fat white hand, which was lying on the table, +between her own and lifted it to her lips. He felt her soft young +fingers even through the lisle-thread gloves that encased them, and +the warm moisture of her lips upon his skin. He felt himself +flushing--but was unable to break the silence or change his +position. The next moment she had scuttled back with her chair to +her old position. + +"I--er--certainly shall do my best," stammered the Colonel, in an +attempt to recover his dignity and composure. + +"That's enough! You'll do it," said she enthusiastically. "Lordy! +Just you talk for ME as ye did for HIS old Ditch Company, and +you'll fetch it--every time! Why, when you made that jury sit up +the other day--when you got that off about the Merrikan flag waving +equally over the rights of honest citizens banded together in +peaceful commercial pursuits, as well as over the fortress of +official proflig--" + +"Oligarchy," murmured the Colonel courteously. + +--"oligarchy," repeated the girl quickly, "my breath was just took +away. I said to maw, 'Ain't he too sweet for anything!' I did, +honest Injin! And when you rolled it all off at the end--never +missing a word (you didn't need to mark 'em in a lesson-book, but +had 'em all ready on your tongue)--and walked out-- Well! I +didn't know you nor the Ditch Company from Adam, but I could have +just run over and kissed you there before the whole court!" + +She laughed, with her face glowing, although her strange eyes were +cast down. Alack! the Colonel's face was equally flushed, and his +own beady eyes were on his desk. To any other woman he would have +voiced the banal gallantry that he should now, himself, look +forward to that reward, but the words never reached his lips. He +laughed, coughed slightly, and when he looked up again she had +fallen into the same attitude as on her first visit, with her +parasol point on the floor. + +"I must ask you to--er--direct your memory to--er--another point: +the breaking off of the--er--er--er--engagement. Did he--er--give +any reason for it? Or show any cause?" + +"No; he never said anything," returned the girl. + +"Not in his usual way?--er--no reproaches out of the hymn-book?--or +the sacred writings?" + +"No; he just QUIT." + +"Er--ceased his attentions," said the Colonel gravely. "And +naturally you--er--were not conscious of any cause for his doing +so." + +The girl raised her wonderful eyes so suddenly and so penetratingly +without replying in any other way that the Colonel could only +hurriedly say: "I see! None, of course!" + +At which she rose, the Colonel rising also. "We--shall begin +proceedings at once. I must, however, caution you to answer no +questions, nor say anything about this case to any one until you +are in court." + +She answered his request with another intelligent look and a nod. +He accompanied her to the door. As he took her proffered hand, he +raised the lisle-thread fingers to his lips with old-fashioned +gallantry. As if that act had condoned for his first omissions and +awkwardness, he became his old-fashioned self again, buttoned his +coat, pulled out his shirt frill, and strutted back to his desk. + +A day or two later it was known throughout the town that Zaidee +Hooker had sued Adoniram Hotchkiss for breach of promise, and that +the damages were laid at five thousand dollars. As in those +bucolic days the Western press was under the secure censorship of a +revolver, a cautious tone of criticism prevailed, and any gossip +was confined to personal expression, and even then at the risk of +the gossiper. Nevertheless, the situation provoked the intensest +curiosity. The Colonel was approached--until his statement that he +should consider any attempt to overcome his professional secrecy a +personal reflection withheld further advances. The community were +left to the more ostentatious information of the defendant's +counsel, Messrs. Kitcham and Bilser, that the case was "ridiculous" +and "rotten," that the plaintiff would be nonsuited, and the fire- +eating Starbottle would be taught a lesson that he could not +"bully" the law, and there were some dark hints of a conspiracy. +It was even hinted that the "case" was the revengeful and +preposterous outcome of the refusal of Hotchkiss to pay Starbottle +an extravagant fee for his late services to the Ditch Company. It +is unnecessary to say that these words were not reported to the +Colonel. It was, however, an unfortunate circumstance for the +calmer, ethical consideration of the subject that the Church sided +with Hotchkiss, as this provoked an equal adherence to the +plaintiff and Starbottle on the part of the larger body of non- +churchgoers, who were delighted at a possible exposure of the +weakness of religious rectitude. "I've allus had my suspicions o' +them early candle-light meetings down at that gospel shop," said +one critic, "and I reckon Deacon Hotchkiss didn't rope in the gals +to attend jest for psalm-singing." "Then for him to get up and +leave the board afore the game's finished and try to sneak out of +it," said an other,--"I suppose that's what they call RELIGIOUS." + +It was therefore not remarkable that the court-house three weeks +later was crowded with an excited multitude of the curious and +sympathizing. The fair plaintiff, with her mother, was early in +attendance, and under the Colonel's advice appeared in the same +modest garb in which she had first visited his office. This and +her downcast, modest demeanor were perhaps at first disappointing +to the crowd, who had evidently expected a paragon of loveliness in +this Circe of that grim, ascetic defendant, who sat beside his +counsel. But presently all eyes were fixed on the Colonel, who +certainly made up in his appearance any deficiency of his fair +client. His portly figure was clothed in a blue dress coat with +brass buttons, a buff waistcoat which permitted his frilled shirt- +front to become erectile above it, a black satin stock which +confined a boyish turned-down collar around his full neck, and +immaculate drill trousers, strapped over varnished boots. A murmur +ran round the court. "Old 'Personally Responsible' has got his +war-paint on;" "The Old War-Horse is smelling powder," were +whispered comments. Yet for all that, the most irreverent among +them recognized vaguely, in this bizarre figure, something of an +honored past in their country's history, and possibly felt the +spell of old deeds and old names that had once thrilled their +boyish pulses. The new District Judge returned Colonel Starbottle's +profoundly punctilious bow. The Colonel was followed by his negro +servant, carrying a parcel of hymn-books and Bibles, who, with a +courtesy evidently imitated from his master, placed one before the +opposite counsel. This, after a first curious glance, the lawyer +somewhat superciliously tossed aside. But when Jim, proceeding to +the jury-box, placed with equal politeness the remaining copies +before the jury, the opposite counsel sprang to his feet. + +"I want to direct the attention of the Court to this unprecedented +tampering with the jury, by this gratuitous exhibition of matter +impertinent and irrelevant to the issue." + +The Judge cast an inquiring look at Colonel Starbottle. + +"May it please the Court," returned Colonel Starbottle with dignity, +ignoring the counsel, "the defendant's counsel will observe that he +is already furnished with the matter--which I regret to say he has +treated--in the presence of the Court--and of his client, a deacon +of the church--with--er--great superciliousness. When I state to +your Honor that the books in question are hymn-books and copies of +the Holy Scriptures, and that they are for the instruction of the +jury, to whom I shall have to refer them in the course of my +opening, I believe I am within my rights." + +"The act is certainly unprecedented," said the Judge dryly, "but +unless the counsel for the plaintiff expects the jury to SING from +these hymn-books, their introduction is not improper, and I cannot +admit the objection. As defendant's counsel are furnished with +copies also, they cannot plead 'surprise,' as in the introduction +of new matter, and as plaintiff's counsel relies evidently upon the +jury's attention to his opening, he would not be the first person +to distract it." After a pause he added, addressing the Colonel, +who remained standing, "The Court is with you, sir; proceed." + +But the Colonel remained motionless and statuesque, with folded +arms. + +"I have overruled the objection," repeated the Judge; "you may go +on." + +"I am waiting, your Honor, for the--er--withdrawal by the +defendant's counsel of the word 'tampering,' as refers to myself, +and of 'impertinent,' as refers to the sacred volumes." + +"The request is a proper one, and I have no doubt will be acceded +to," returned the Judge quietly. The defendant's counsel rose and +mumbled a few words of apology, and the incident closed. There +was, however, a general feeling that the Colonel had in some way +"scored," and if his object had been to excite the greatest +curiosity about the books, he had made his point. + +But impassive of his victory, he inflated his chest, with his right +hand in the breast of his buttoned coat, and began. His usual high +color had paled slightly, but the small pupils of his prominent +eyes glittered like steel. The young girl leaned forward in her +chair with an attention so breathless, a sympathy so quick, and an +admiration so artless and unconscious that in an instant she +divided with the speaker the attention of the whole assemblage. It +was very hot; the court was crowded to suffocation; even the open +windows revealed a crowd of faces outside the building, eagerly +following the Colonel's words. + +He would remind the jury that only a few weeks ago he stood there +as the advocate of a powerful Company, then represented by the +present defendant. He spoke then as the champion of strict justice +against legal oppression; no less should he to-day champion the +cause of the unprotected and the comparatively defenseless--save +for that paramount power which surrounds beauty and innocence--even +though the plaintiff of yesterday was the defendant of to-day. As +he approached the court a moment ago he had raised his eyes and +beheld the starry flag flying from its dome, and he knew that +glorious banner was a symbol of the perfect equality, under the +Constitution, of the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak--an +equality which made the simple citizen taken from the plough in the +field, the pick in the gulch, or from behind the counter in the +mining town, who served on that jury, the equal arbiters of justice +with that highest legal luminary whom they were proud to welcome on +the bench to-day. The Colonel paused, with a stately bow to the +impassive Judge. It was this, he continued, which lifted his heart +as he approached the building. And yet--he had entered it with an +uncertain--he might almost say--a timid step. And why? He knew, +gentlemen, he was about to confront a profound--aye! a sacred +responsibility! Those hymn-books and holy writings handed to the +jury were NOT, as his Honor had surmised, for the purpose of +enabling the jury to indulge in--er--preliminary choral exercise! +He might, indeed, say, "Alas, not!" They were the damning, +incontrovertible proofs of the perfidy of the defendant. And they +would prove as terrible a warning to him as the fatal characters +upon Belshazzar's wall. There was a strong sensation. Hotchkiss +turned a sallow green. His lawyers assumed a careless smile. + +It was his duty to tell them that this was not one of those +ordinary "breach-of-promise" cases which were too often the +occasion of ruthless mirth and indecent levity in the court-room. +The jury would find nothing of that here. There were no love- +letters with the epithets of endearment, nor those mystic crosses +and ciphers which, he had been credibly informed, chastely hid the +exchange of those mutual caresses known as "kisses." There was no +cruel tearing of the veil from those sacred privacies of the human +affection; there was no forensic shouting out of those fond +confidences meant only for ONE. But there was, he was shocked to +say, a new sacrilegious intrusion. The weak pipings of Cupid were +mingled with the chorus of the saints,--the sanctity of the temple +known as the "meeting--house" was desecrated by proceedings more in +keeping with the shrine of Venus; and the inspired writings +themselves were used as the medium of amatory and wanton flirtation +by the defendant in his sacred capacity as deacon. + +The Colonel artistically paused after this thunderous denunciation. +The jury turned eagerly to the leaves of the hymn-books, but the +larger gaze of the audience remained fixed upon the speaker and the +girl, who sat in rapt admiration of his periods. After the hush, +the Colonel continued in a lower and sadder voice: "There are, +perhaps, few of us here, gentlemen,--with the exception of the +defendant,--who can arrogate to themselves the title of regular +church-goers, or to whom these humbler functions of the prayer- +meeting, the Sunday-school, and the Bible-class are habitually +familiar. Yet"--more solemnly--"down in our hearts is the deep +conviction of our shortcomings and failings, and a laudable desire +that others, at least, should profit by the teachings we neglect. +Perhaps," he continued, closing his eyes dreamily, "there is not a +man here who does not recall the happy days of his boyhood, the +rustic village spire, the lessons shared with some artless village +maiden, with whom he later sauntered, hand in hand, through the +woods, as the simple rhyme rose upon their lips,-- + + + 'Always make it a point to have it a rule, + Never to be late at the Sabbath-school.' + + +He would recall the strawberry feasts, the welcome annual picnic, +redolent with hunks of gingerbread and sarsaparilla. How would +they feel to know that these sacred recollections were now forever +profaned in their memory by the knowledge that the defendant was +capable of using such occasions to make love to the larger girls +and teachers, whilst his artless companions were innocently--the +Court will pardon me for introducing what I am credibly informed is +the local expression--'doing gooseberry'?" The tremulous flicker +of a smile passed over the faces of the listening crowd, and the +Colonel slightly winced. But he recovered himself instantly, and +continued,-- + +"My client, the only daughter of a widowed mother--who has for +years stemmed the varying tides of adversity, in the western +precincts of this town--stands before you to-day invested only in +her own innocence. She wears no--er--rich gifts of her faithless +admirer--is panoplied in no jewels, rings, nor mementos of +affection such as lovers delight to hang upon the shrine of their +affections; hers is not the glory with which Solomon decorated the +Queen of Sheba, though the defendant, as I shall show later, +clothed her in the less expensive flowers of the king's poetry. +No, gentlemen! The defendant exhibited in this affair a certain +frugality of--er--pecuniary investment, which I am willing to admit +may be commendable in his class. His only gift was characteristic +alike of his methods and his economy. There is, I understand, a +certain not unimportant feature of religious exercise known as +'taking a collection.' The defendant, on this occasion, by the +mute presentation of a tin plate covered with baize, solicited the +pecuniary contributions of the faithful. On approaching the +plaintiff, however, he himself slipped a love-token upon the plate +and pushed it towards her. That love-token was a lozenge--a small +disk, I have reason to believe, concocted of peppermint and sugar, +bearing upon its reverse surface the simple words, 'I love you!' I +have since ascertained that these disks may be bought for five +cents a dozen--or at considerably less than one half cent for the +single lozenge. Yes, gentlemen, the words 'I love you!'--the +oldest legend of all; the refrain 'when the morning stars sang +together'--were presented to the plaintiff by a medium so +insignificant that there is, happily, no coin in the republic low +enough to represent its value. + +"I shall prove to you, gentlemen of the jury," said the Colonel +solemnly, drawing a Bible from his coat-tail pocket, "that the +defendant for the last twelve months conducted an amatory +correspondence with the plaintiff by means of underlined words of +Sacred Writ and church psalmody, such as 'beloved,' 'precious,' and +'dearest,' occasionally appropriating whole passages which seemed +apposite to his tender passion. I shall call your attention to one +of them. The defendant, while professing to be a total abstainer,-- +a man who, in my own knowledge, has refused spirituous refreshment +as an inordinate weakness of the flesh,--with shameless hypocrisy +underscores with his pencil the following passage, and presents it +to the plaintiff. The gentlemen of the jury will find it in the +Song of Solomon, page 548, chapter ii. verse 5." After a pause, in +which the rapid rustling of leaves was heard in the jury-box, +Colonel Starbottle declaimed in a pleading, stentorian voice, +"'Stay me with--er--FLAGONS, comfort me with--er--apples--for I am-- +er--sick of love.' Yes, gentlemen!--yes, you may well turn from +those accusing pages and look at the double-faced defendant. He +desires--to--er--be--'stayed with flagons'! I am not aware at +present what kind of liquor is habitually dispensed at these +meetings, and for which the defendant so urgently clamored; but it +will be my duty, before this trial is over, to discover it, if I +have to summon every barkeeper in this district. For the moment I +will simply call your attention to the QUANTITY. It is not a +single drink that the defendant asks for--not a glass of light and +generous wine, to be shared with his inamorata, but a number of +flagons or vessels, each possibly holding a pint measure--FOR +HIMSELF!" + +The smile of the audience had become a laugh. The Judge looked up +warningly, when his eye caught the fact that the Colonel had again +winced at this mirth. He regarded him seriously. Mr. Hotchkiss's +counsel had joined in the laugh affectedly, but Hotchkiss himself +sat ashy pale. There was also a commotion in the jury-box, a +hurried turning over of leaves, and an excited discussion. + +"The gentlemen of the jury," said the Judge, with official gravity, +"will please keep order and attend only to the speeches of counsel. +Any discussion HERE is irregular and premature, and must be +reserved for the jury-room after they have retired." + +The foreman of the jury struggled to his feet. He was a powerful +man, with a good-humored face, and, in spite of his unfelicitous +nickname of "The Bone-Breaker," had a kindly, simple, but somewhat +emotional nature. Nevertheless, it appeared as if he were laboring +under some powerful indignation. + +"Can we ask a question, Judge?" he said respectfully, although his +voice had the unmistakable Western American ring in it, as of one +who was unconscious that he could be addressing any but his peers. + +"Yes," said the Judge good-humoredly. + +"We're finding in this yere piece, out o' which the Kernel hes just +bin a-quotin', some language that me and my pardners allow hadn't +orter be read out afore a young lady in court, and we want to know +of you--ez a fa'r-minded and impartial man--ef this is the reg'lar +kind o' book given to gals and babies down at the meetin'-house." + +"The jury will please follow the counsel's speech without comment," +said the Judge briefly, fully aware that the defendant's counsel +would spring to his feet, as he did promptly. + +"The Court will allow us to explain to the gentlemen that the +language they seem to object to has been accepted by the best +theologians for the last thousand years as being purely mystic. As +I will explain later, those are merely symbols of the Church"-- + +"Of wot?" interrupted the foreman, in deep scorn. + +"Of the Church!" + +"We ain't askin' any questions o' YOU, and we ain't takin' any +answers," said the foreman, sitting down abruptly. + +"I must insist," said the Judge sternly, "that the plaintiff's +counsel be allowed to continue his opening without interruption. +You" (to defendant's counsel) "will have your opportunity to reply +later." + +The counsel sank down in his seat with the bitter conviction that +the jury was manifestly against him, and the case as good as lost. +But his face was scarcely as disturbed as his client's, who, in +great agitation, had begun to argue with him wildly, and was +apparently pressing some point against the lawyer's vehement +opposal. The Colonel's murky eyes brightened as he still stood +erect, with his hand thrust in his breast. + +"It will be put to you, gentlemen, when the counsel on the other +side refrains from mere interruption and confines himself to reply, +that my unfortunate client has no action--no remedy at law--because +there were no spoken words of endearment. But, gentlemen, it will +depend upon YOU to say what are and what are not articulate +expressions of love. We all know that among the lower animals, +with whom you may possibly be called upon to classify the +defendant, there are certain signals more or less harmonious, as +the case may be. The ass brays, the horse neighs, the sheep +bleats--the feathered denizens of the grove call to their mates in +more musical roundelays. These are recognized facts, gentlemen, +which you yourselves, as dwellers among nature in this beautiful +land, are all cognizant of. They are facts that no one would deny-- +and we should have a poor opinion of the ass who, at--er--such a +supreme moment, would attempt to suggest that his call was +unthinking and without significance. But, gentlemen, I shall prove +to you that such was the foolish, self-convicting custom of the +defendant. With the greatest reluctance, and the--er--greatest +pain, I succeeded in wresting from the maidenly modesty of my fair +client the innocent confession that the defendant had induced her +to correspond with him in these methods. Picture to yourself, +gentlemen, the lonely moonlight road beside the widow's humble +cottage. It is a beautiful night, sanctified to the affections, +and the innocent girl is leaning from her casement. Presently +there appears upon the road a slinking, stealthy figure, the +defendant on his way to church. True to the instruction she has +received from him, her lips part in the musical utterance" (the +Colonel lowered his voice in a faint falsetto, presumably in fond +imitation of his fair client), "'Keeree!' Instantly the night +becomes resonant with the impassioned reply" (the Colonel here +lifted his voice in stentorian tones), "'Kee-row.' Again, as he +passes, rises the soft 'Keeree;' again, as his form is lost in the +distance, comes back the deep 'Keerow.'" + +A burst of laughter, long, loud, and irrepressible, struck the +whole court-room, and before the Judge could lift his half-composed +face and take his handkerchief from his mouth, a faint "Keeree" +from some unrecognized obscurity of the court-room was followed by +a loud "Keerow" from some opposite locality. "The Sheriff will +clear the court," said the Judge sternly; but, alas! as the +embarrassed and choking officials rushed hither and thither, a soft +"Keeree" from the spectators at the window, OUTSIDE the court- +house, was answered by a loud chorus of "Keerows" from the opposite +windows, filled with onlookers. Again the laughter arose +everywhere,--even the fair plaintiff herself sat convulsed behind +her handkerchief. + +The figure of Colonel Starbottle alone remained erect--white and +rigid. And then the Judge, looking up, saw--what no one else in +the court had seen--that the Colonel was sincere and in earnest; +that what he had conceived to be the pleader's most perfect acting +and most elaborate irony were the deep, serious, mirthless +CONVICTIONS of a man without the least sense of humor. There was +the respect of this conviction in the Judge's voice as he said to +him gently, "You may proceed, Colonel Starbottle." + +"I thank your Honor," said the Colonel slowly, "for recognizing and +doing all in your power to prevent an interruption that, during my +thirty years' experience at the bar, I have never been subjected to +without the privilege of holding the instigators thereof +responsible--PERSONALLY responsible. It is possibly my fault that +I have failed, oratorically, to convey to the gentlemen of the jury +the full force and significance of the defendant's signals. I am +aware that my voice is singularly deficient in producing either the +dulcet tones of my fair client or the impassioned vehemence of the +defendant's response. I will," continued the Colonel, with a +fatigued but blind fatuity that ignored the hurriedly knit brows +and warning eyes of the Judge, "try again. The note uttered by my +client" (lowering his voice to the faintest of falsettos) "was +'Keeree;' the response was 'Keerow-ow.'" And the Colonel's voice +fairly shook the dome above him. + +Another uproar of laughter followed this apparently audacious +repetition, but was interrupted by an unlooked-for incident. The +defendant rose abruptly, and tearing himself away from the +withholding hand and pleading protestations of his counsel, +absolutely fled from the court-room, his appearance outside being +recognized by a prolonged "Keerow" from the bystanders, which again +and again followed him in the distance. + +In the momentary silence which followed, the Colonel's voice was +heard saying, "We rest here, your Honor," and he sat down. No less +white, but more agitated, was the face of the defendant's counsel, +who instantly rose. + +"For some unexplained reason, your Honor, my client desires to +suspend further proceedings, with a view to effect a peaceable +compromise with the plaintiff. As he is a man of wealth and +position, he is able and willing to pay liberally for that +privilege. While I, as his counsel, am still convinced of his +legal irresponsibility, as he has chosen publicly to abandon his +rights here, I can only ask your Honor's permission to suspend +further proceedings until I can confer with Colonel Starbottle." + +"As far as I can follow the pleadings," said the Judge gravely, +"the case seems to be hardly one for litigation, and I approve of +the defendant's course, while I strongly urge the plaintiff to +accept it." + +Colonel Starbottle bent over his fair client. Presently he rose, +unchanged in look or demeanor. "I yield, your Honor, to the wishes +of my client, and--er--lady. We accept." + +Before the court adjourned that day it was known throughout the +town that Adoniram K. Hotchkiss had compromised the suit for four +thousand dollars and costs. + +Colonel Starbottle had so far recovered his equanimity as to strut +jauntily towards his office, where he was to meet his fair client. +He was surprised, however, to find her already there, and in +company with a somewhat sheepish-looking young man--a stranger. If +the Colonel had any disappointment in meeting a third party to the +interview, his old-fashioned courtesy did not permit him to show +it. He bowed graciously, and politely motioned them each to a seat. + +"I reckoned I'd bring Hiram round with me," said the young lady, +lifting her searching eyes, after a pause, to the Colonel's, +"though he WAS awful shy, and allowed that you didn't know him from +Adam, or even suspect his existence. But I said, 'That's just +where you slip up, Hiram; a pow'ful man like the Colonel knows +everything--and I've seen it in his eye.' Lordy!" she continued, +with a laugh, leaning forward over her parasol, as her eyes again +sought the Colonel's, "don't you remember when you asked me if I +loved that old Hotchkiss, and I told you, 'That's tellin',' and you +looked at me--Lordy! I knew THEN you suspected there was a Hiram +SOMEWHERE, as good as if I'd told you. Now you jest get up, Hiram, +and give the Colonel a good hand-shake. For if it wasn't for HIM +and HIS searchin' ways, and HIS awful power of language, I wouldn't +hev got that four thousand dollars out o' that flirty fool +Hotchkiss--enough to buy a farm, so as you and me could get +married! That's what you owe to HIM. Don't stand there like a +stuck fool starin' at him. He won't eat you--though he's killed +many a better man. Come, have I got to do ALL the kissin'?" + +It is of record that the Colonel bowed so courteously and so +profoundly that he managed not merely to evade the proffered hand +of the shy Hiram, but to only lightly touch the franker and more +impulsive finger-tips of the gentle Zaidee. "I--er--offer my +sincerest congratulations--though I think you--er--overestimate-- +my--er--powers of penetration. Unfortunately, a pressing +engagement, which may oblige me also to leave town tonight, forbids +my saying more. I have--er--left the--er--business settlement of +this--er--case in the hands of the lawyers who do my office work, +and who will show you every attention. And now let me wish you a +very good afternoon." + +Nevertheless, the Colonel returned to his private room, and it was +nearly twilight when the faithful Jim entered, to find him sitting +meditatively before his desk. "'Fo' God! Kernel, I hope dey ain't +nuffin de matter, but you's lookin' mighty solemn! I ain't seen +you look dat way, Kernel, since de day pooh Massa Stryker was +fetched home shot froo de head." + +"Hand me down the whiskey, Jim," said the Colonel, rising slowly. + +The negro flew to the closet joyfully, and brought out the bottle. +The Colonel poured out a glass of the spirit and drank it with his +old deliberation. + +"You're quite right, Jim," he said, putting down his glass, "but +I'm--er--getting old--and--somehow I am missing poor Stryker +damnably!" + + + +THE LANDLORD OF THE BIG FLUME HOTEL + + +The Big Flume stage-coach had just drawn up at the Big Flume Hotel +simultaneously with the ringing of a large dinner bell in the two +hands of a negro waiter, who, by certain gyrations of the bell was +trying to impart to his performance that picturesque elegance and +harmony which the instrument and its purpose lacked. For the +refreshment thus proclaimed was only the ordinary station dinner, +protracted at Big Flume for three quarters of an hour, to allow for +the arrival of the connecting mail from Sacramento, although the +repast was of a nature that seldom prevailed upon the traveler to +linger the full period over its details. The ordinary cravings of +hunger were generally satisfied in half an hour, and the remaining +minutes were employed by the passengers in drowning the memory of +their meal in "drinks at the bar," in smoking, and even in a +hurried game of "old sledge," or dominoes. Yet to-day the deserted +table was still occupied by a belated traveler, and a lady-- +separated by a wilderness of empty dishes--who had arrived after +the stage-coach. Observing which, the landlord, perhaps touched by +this unwonted appreciation of his fare, moved forward to give them +his personal attention. + +He was a man, however, who seemed to be singularly deficient in +those supreme qualities which in the West have exalted the ability +to "keep a hotel" into a proverbial synonym for superexcellence. +He had little or no innovating genius, no trade devices, no +assumption, no faculty for advertisement, no progressiveness, and +no "racket." He had the tolerant good-humor of the Southwestern +pioneer, to whom cyclones, famine, drought, floods, pestilence, and +savages were things to be accepted, and whom disaster, if it did +not stimulate, certainly did not appall. He received the insults, +complaints, and criticisms of hurried and hungry passengers, the +comments and threats of the Stage Company as he had submitted to +the aggressions of a stupid, unjust, but overruling Nature--with +unshaken calm. Perhaps herein lay his strength. People were +obliged to submit to him and his hotel as part of the unfinished +civilization, and they even saw something humorous in his +impassiveness. Those who preferred to remonstrate with him emerged +from the discussion with the general feeling of having been played +with by a large-hearted and paternally disposed bear. Tall and +long-limbed, with much strength in his lazy muscles, there was also +a prevailing impression that this feeling might be intensified if +the discussion were ever carried to physical contention. Of his +personal history it was known only that he had emigrated from +Wisconsin in 1852, that he had calmly unyoked his ox teams at Big +Flume, then a trackless wilderness, and on the opening of a wagon +road to the new mines had built a wayside station which eventually +developed into the present hotel. He had been divorced in a +Western State by his wife "Rosalie," locally known as "The Prairie +Flower of Elkham Creek," for incompatibility of temper! Her temper +was not stated. + +Such was Abner Langworthy, the proprietor, as he moved leisurely +down towards the lady guest, who was nearest, and who was sitting +with her back to the passage between the tables. Stopping, +occasionally, to professionally adjust the tablecloths and glasses, +he at last reached her side. + +"Ef there's anythin' more ye want that ye ain't seein', ma'am," he +began--and stopped suddenly. For the lady had looked up at the +sound of his voice. It was his divorced wife, whom he had not seen +since their separation. The recognition was instantaneous, mutual, +and characterized by perfect equanimity on both sides. + +"Well! I wanter know!" said the lady, although the exclamation +point was purely conventional. "Abner Langworthy! though perhaps +I've no call to say 'Abner.'" + +"Same to you, Rosalie--though I say it too," returned the landlord. +"But hol' on just a minit." He moved forward to the other guest, +put the same perfunctory question regarding his needs, received a +negative answer, and then returned to the lady and dropped into a +chair opposite to her. + +"You're looking peart and--fleshy," he said resignedly, as if he +were tolerating his own conventional politeness with his other +difficulties; "unless," he added cautiously, "you're takin' on some +new disease." + +"No! I'm fairly comf'ble," responded the lady calmly, "and you're +gettin' on in the vale, ez is natural--though you still kind o' run +to bone, as you used." + +There was not a trace of malevolence in either of their comments, +only a resigned recognition of certain unpleasant truths which +seemed to have been habitual to both of them. Mr. Langworthy +paused to flick away some flies from the butter with his +professional napkin, and resumed,-- + +"It must be a matter o' five years sens I last saw ye, isn't it?-- +in court arter you got the decree--you remember?" + +"Yes--the 28th o' July, '51. I paid Lawyer Hoskins's bill that +very day--that's how I remember," returned the lady. "You've got a +big business here," she continued, glancing round the room; "I +reckon you're makin' it pay. Don't seem to be in your line, +though; but then, thar wasn't many things that was." + +"No--that's so," responded Mr. Langworthy, nodding his head, as +assenting to an undeniable proposition, "and you--I suppose you're +gettin' on too. I reckon you're--er--married--eh?"--with a slight +suggestion of putting the question delicately. + +The lady nodded, ignoring the hesitation. "Yes, let me see, it's +just three years and three days. Constantine Byers--I don't reckon +you know him--from Milwaukee. Timber merchant. Standin' timber's +his specialty." + +"And I reckon he's--satisfactory?" + +"Yes! Mr. Byers is a good provider--and handy. And you? I should +say you'd want a wife in this business?" + +Mr. Langworthy's serious half-perfunctory manner here took on an +appearance of interest. "Yes--I've bin thinkin' that way. Thar's +a young woman helpin' in the kitchen ez might do, though I'm not +certain, and I ain't lettin' on anything as yet. You might take a +look at her, Rosalie,--I orter say Mrs. Byers ez is,--and kinder +size her up, and gimme the result. It's still wantin' seven +minutes o' schedule time afore the stage goes, and--if you ain't +wantin' more food"--delicately, as became a landord--"and ain't got +anythin' else to do, it might pass the time." + +Strange as it may seem, Mrs. Byers here displayed an equal animation +in her fresh face as she rose promptly to her feet and began to +rearrange her dust cloak around her buxom figure. "I don't mind, +Abner," she said, "and I don't think that Mr. Byers would mind +either;" then seeing Langworthy hesitating at the latter unexpected +suggestion, she added confidently, "and I wouldn't mind even if he +did, for I'm sure if I don't know the kind o' woman you'd be likely +to need, I don't know who would. Only last week I was sayin' like +that to Mr. Byers"-- + +"To Mr. Byers?" said Abner, with some surprise. + +"Yes--to him. I said, 'We've been married three years, Constantine, +and ef I don't know by this time what kind o' woman you need +now--and might need in future--why, thar ain't much use in +matrimony.'" + +"You was always wise, Rosalie," said Abner, with reminiscent +appreciation. + +"I was always there, Abner," returned Mrs. Byers, with a complacent +show of dimples, which she, however, chastened into that +resignation which seemed characteristic of the pair. "Let's see +your 'intended'--as might be." + +Thus supported, Mr. Langworthy led Mrs. Byers into the hall through +a crowd of loungers, into a smaller hall, and there opened the door +of the kitchen. It was a large room, whose windows were half +darkened by the encompassing pines which still pressed around the +house on the scantily cleared site. A number of men and women, +among them a Chinaman and a negro, were engaged in washing dishes +and other culinary duties; and beside the window stood a young +blonde girl, who was wiping a tin pan which she was also using to +hide a burst of laughter evidently caused by the abrupt entrance of +her employer. A quantity of fluffy hair and part of a white, bared +arm were nevertheless visible outside the disk, and Mrs. Byers +gathered from the direction of Mr. Langworthy's eyes, assisted by a +slight nudge from his elbow, that this was the selected fair one. +His feeble explanatory introduction, addressed to the occupants +generally, "Just showing the house to Mrs.--er--Dusenberry," +convinced her that the circumstances of his having been divorced he +had not yet confided to the young woman. As he turned almost +immediately away, Mrs. Byers in following him managed to get a +better look at the girl, as she was exchanging some facetious +remark to a neighbor. Mr. Langworthy did not speak until they had +reached the deserted dining-room again. + +"Well?" he said briefly, glancing at the clock, "what did ye think +o' Mary Ellen?" + +To any ordinary observer the girl in question would have seemed the +least fitted in age, sobriety of deportment, and administrative +capacity to fill the situation thus proposed for her, but Mrs. +Byers was not an ordinary observer, and her auditor was not an +ordinary listener. + +"She's older than she gives herself out to be," said Mrs. Byers +tentatively, "and them kitten ways don't amount to much." + +Mr. Langworthy nodded. Had Mrs. Byers discovered a homicidal +tendency in Mary Ellen he would have been equally unmoved. + +"She don't handsome much," continued Mrs. Byers musingly, "but"-- + +"I never was keen on good looks in a woman, Rosalie. You know +that!" Mrs. Byers received the equivocal remark unemotionally, and +returned to the subject. + +"Well!" she said contemplatively, "I should think you could make +her suit." + +Mr. Langworthy nodded with resigned toleration of all that might +have influenced her judgment and his own. "I was wantin' a fa'r- +minded opinion, Rosalie, and you happened along jest in time. Kin +I put up anythin' in the way of food for ye?" he added, as a stir +outside and the words "All aboard!" proclaimed the departing of the +stage-coach,--"an orange or a hunk o' gingerbread, freshly baked?" + +"Thank ye kindly, Abner, but I sha'n't be usin' anythin' afore +supper," responded Mrs. Byers, as they passed out into the veranda +beside the waiting coach. + +Mr. Langworthy helped her to her seat. "Ef you're passin' this way +ag'in"--he hesitated delicately. + +"I'll drop in, or I reckon Mr. Byers might, he havin' business +along the road," returned Mrs. Byers with a cheerful nod, as the +coach rolled away and the landlord of the Big Flume Hotel reentered +his house. + +For the next three weeks, however, it did not appear that Mr. +Langworthy was in any hurry to act upon the advice of his former +wife. His relations to Mary Ellen Budd were characterized by his +usual tolerance to his employees' failings,--which in Mary Ellen's +case included many "breakages,"--but were not marked by the +invasion of any warmer feeling, or a desire for confidences. The +only perceptible divergence from his regular habits was a +disposition to be on the veranda at the arrival of the stage-coach, +and when his duties permitted this, a cautious survey of his female +guests at the beginning of dinner. This probably led to his more +or less ignoring any peculiarities in his masculine patrons or +their claims to his personal attention. Particularly so, in the +case of a red-bearded man, in a long linen duster, both heavily +freighted with the red dust of the stage road, which seemed to have +invaded his very eyes as he watched the landlord closely. Towards +the close of the dinner, when Abner, accompanied by a negro waiter +after his usual custom, passed down each side of the long table, +collecting payment for the meal, the stranger looked up. "You air +the landlord of this hotel, I reckon?" + +"I am," said Abner tolerantly. + +"I'd like a word or two with ye." + +But Abner had been obliged to have a formula for such occasions. +"Ye'll pay for yer dinner first," he said submissively, but firmly, +"and make yer remarks agin the food arter." + +The stranger flushed quickly, and his eye took an additional shade +of red, but meeting Abner's serious gray ones, he contented himself +with ostentatiously taking out a handful of gold and silver and +paying his bill. Abner passed on, but after dinner was over he +found the stranger in the hall. + +"Ye pulled me up rather short in thar," said the man gloomily, "but +it's just as well, as the talk I was wantin' with ye was kinder +betwixt and between ourselves, and not hotel business. My name's +Byers, and my wife let on she met ye down here." + +For the first time it struck Abner as incongruous that another man +should call Rosalie "his wife," although the fact of her remarriage +had been made sufficiently plain to him. He accepted it as he +would an earthquake, or any other dislocation, with his usual +tolerant smile, and held out his hand. + +Mr. Byers took it, seemingly mollified, and yet inwardly disturbed,-- +more even than was customary in Abner's guests after dinner. + +"Have a drink with me," he suggested, although it had struck him +that Mr. Byers had been drinking before dinner. + +"I'm agreeable," responded Byers promptly; "but," with a glance at +the crowded bar-room, "couldn't we go somewhere, jest you and me, +and have a quiet confab?" + +"I reckon. But ye must wait till we get her off." + +Mr. Byers started slightly, but it appeared that the impedimental +sex in this case was the coach, which, after a slight feminine +hesitation, was at last started. Whereupon Mr. Langworthy, +followed by a negro with a tray bearing a decanter and glasses, +grasped Mr. Byers's arm, and walked along a small side veranda the +depth of the house, stepped off, and apparently plunged with his +guest into the primeval wilderness. + +It has already been indicated that the site of the Big Flume Hotel +had been scantily cleared; but Mr. Byers, backwoodsman though he +was, was quite unprepared for so abrupt a change. The hotel, with +its noisy crowd and garish newness, although scarcely a dozen yards +away, seemed lost completely to sight and sound. A slight fringe +of old tin cans, broken china, shavings, and even of the long-dried +chips of the felled trees, once crossed, the two men were alone! +From the tray, deposited at the foot of an enormous pine, they took +the decanter, filled their glasses, and then disposed of themselves +comfortably against a spreading root. The curling tail of a +squirrel disappeared behind them; the far-off tap of a woodpecker +accented the loneliness. And then, almost magically as it seemed, +the thin veneering of civilization on the two men seemed to be cast +off like the bark of the trees around them, and they lounged before +each other in aboriginal freedom. Mr. Byers removed his restraining +duster and undercoat. Mr. Langworthy resigned his dirty white +jacket, his collar, and unloosed a suspender, with which he played. + +"Would it be a fair question between two fa'r-minded men, ez hez +lived alone," said Mr. Byers, with a gravity so supernatural that +it could be referred only to liquor, "to ask ye in what sort o' way +did Mrs. Byers show her temper?" + +"Show her temper?" echoed Abner vacantly. + +"Yes--in course, I mean when you and Mrs. Byers was--was--one? You +know the di-vorce was for in-com-pat-ibility of temper." + +"But she got the divorce from me, so I reckon I had the temper," +said Langworthy, with great simplicity. + +"Wha-at?" said Mr. Byers, putting down his glass and gazing with +drunken gravity at the sad-eyed yet good-humoredly tolerant man +before him. "You?--you had the temper?" + +"I reckon that's what the court allowed," said Abner simply. + +Mr. Byers stared. Then after a moment's pause he nodded with a +significant yet relieved face. "Yes, I see, in course. Times when +you'd h'isted too much o' this corn juice," lifting up his glass, +"inside ye--ye sorter bu'st out ravin'?" + +But Abner shook his head. "I wuz a total abstainer in them days," +he said quietly. + +Mr. Byers got unsteadily on his legs and looked around him. "Wot +might hev bin the general gait o' your temper, pardner?" he said in +a hoarse whisper. + +"Don't know. I reckon that's jest whar the incompatibility kem +in." + +"And when she hove plates at your head, wot did you do?" + +"She didn't hove no plates," said Abner gravely; "did she say she +did?" + +"No, no!" returned Byers hastily, in crimson confusion. "I kinder +got it mixed with suthin' else." He waved his hand in a lordly +way, as if dismissing the subject. "Howsumever, you and her is +'off' anyway," he added with badly concealed anxiety. + +"I reckon: there's the decree," returned Abner, with his usual +resigned acceptance of the fact. + +"Mrs. Byers wuz allowin' ye wuz thinkin' of a second. How's that +comin' on?" + +"Jest whar it was," returned Abner. "I ain't doin' anything yet. +Ye see I've got to tell the gal, naterally, that I'm di-vorced. +And as that isn't known hereabouts, I don't keer to do so till I'm +pretty certain. And then, in course, I've got to." + +"Why hev ye 'got to'?" asked Byers abruptly. + +"Because it wouldn't be on the square with the girl," said Abner. +"How would you like it if Mrs. Byers had never told you she'd been +married to me? And s'pose you'd happen to hev bin a di-vorced man +and hadn't told her, eh? Well," he continued, sinking back +resignedly against the tree, "I ain't sayin' anythin' but she'd hev +got another di-vorce, and FROM you on the spot--you bet!" + +"Well! all I kin say is," said Mr. Byers, lifting his voice +excitedly, "that"--but he stopped short, and was about to fill his +glass again from the decanter when the hand of Abner stopped him. + +"Ye've got ez much ez ye kin carry now, Byers," he said slowly, +"and that's about ez much ez I allow a man to take in at the Big +Flume Hotel. Treatin' is treatin', hospitality is hospitality; ef +you and me was squattin' out on the prairie I'd let you fill your +skin with that pizen and wrap ye up in yer blankets afterwards. +But here at Big Flume, the Stage Kempenny and the wimen and +children passengers hez their rights." He paused a moment, and +added, "And so I reckon hez Mrs. Byers, and I ain't goin' to send +you home to her outer my house blind drunk. It's mighty rough on +you and me, I know, but there's a lot o' roughness in this world ez +hez to be got over, and life, ez far ez I kin see, ain't all a +clearin'." + +Perhaps it was his good-humored yet firm determination, perhaps it +was his resigned philosophy, but something in the speaker's manner +affected Mr. Byers's alcoholic susceptibility, and hastened his +descent from the passionate heights of intoxication to the maudlin +stage whither he was drifting. The fire of his red eyes became +filmed and dim, an equal moisture gathered in his throat as he +pressed Abner's hand with drunken fervor. "Thash so! your thinking +o' me an' Mish Byersh is like troo fr'en'," he said thickly. "I +wosh only goin' to shay that wotever Mish Byersh wosh--even if she +wosh wife o' yours--she wosh--noble woman! Such a woman," continued +Mr. Byers, dreamily regarding space, "can't have too many husbands." + +"You jest sit back here a minit, and have a quiet smoke till I come +back," said Abner, handing him his tobacco plug. "I've got to give +the butcher his order--but I won't be a minit." He secured the +decanter as he spoke, and evading an apparent disposition of his +companion to fall upon his neck, made his way with long strides to +the hotel, as Mr. Byers, sinking back against the trees, began +certain futile efforts to light his unfilled pipe. + +Whether Abner's attendance on the butcher was merely an excuse to +withdraw with the decanter, I cannot say. He, however, dispatched +his business quickly, and returned to the tree. But to his +surprise Mr. Byers was no longer there. He explored the adjacent +woodland with non-success, and no reply to his shouting. Annoyed +but not alarmed, as it seemed probable that the missing man had +fallen in a drunken sleep in some hidden shadows, he returned to +the house, when it occurred to him that Byers might have sought the +bar-room for some liquor. But he was still more surprised when the +barkeeper volunteered the information that he had seen Mr. Byers +hurriedly pass down the side veranda into the highroad. An hour +later this was corroborated by an arriving teamster, who had passed +a man answering to the description of Byers, "mor' 'n half full," +staggeringly but hurriedly walking along the road "two miles back." +There seemed to be no doubt that the missing man had taken himself +off in a fit of indignation or of extreme thirst. Either hypothesis +was disagreeable to Abner, in his queer sense of responsibility to +Mrs. Byers, but he accepted it with his usual good-humored +resignation. + +Yet it was difficult to conceive what connection this episode had +in his mind with his suspended attention to Mary Ellen, or why it +should determine his purpose. But he had a logic of his own, and +it seemed to have demonstrated to him that he must propose to the +girl at once. This was no easy matter, however; he had never shown +her any previous attention, and her particular functions in the +hotel,--the charge of the few bedrooms for transient guests--seldom +brought him in contact with her. His interview would have to +appear to be a business one--which, however, he wished to avoid +from a delicate consciousness of its truth. While making up his +mind, for a few days he contented himself with gravely regarding +her in his usual resigned, tolerant way, whenever he passed her. +Unfortunately the first effect of this was an audible giggle from +Mary Ellen, later some confusion and anxiety in her manner, and +finally a demeanor of resentment and defiance. + +This was so different from what he had expected that he was obliged +to precipitate matters. The next day was Sunday,--a day on which +his employees, in turns, were allowed the recreation of being +driven to Big Flume City, eight miles distant, to church, or for +the day's holiday. In the morning Mary Ellen was astonished by +Abner informing her that he designed giving her a separate holiday +with himself. It must be admitted that the girl, who was already +"prinked up" for the enthrallment of the youth of Big Flume City, +did not appear as delighted with the change of plan as a more +exacting lover would have liked. Howbeit, as soon as the wagon had +left with its occupants, Abner, in the unwonted disguise of a full +suit of black clothes, turned to the girl, and offering her his +arm, gravely proceeded along the side veranda across the mound of +debris already described, to the adjacent wilderness and the very +trees under which he and Byers had sat. + +"It's about ez good a place for a little talk, Miss Budd," he said, +pointing to a tree root, "ez ef we went a spell further, and it's +handy to the house. And ef you'll jest say what you'd like outer +the cupboard or the bar--no matter which--I'll fetch it to you." + +But Mary Ellen Budd seated herself sideways on the root, with her +furled white parasol in her lap, her skirts fastidiously tucked +about her feet, and glancing at the fatuous Abner from under her +stack of fluffy hair and light eyelashes, simply shook her head and +said that "she reckoned she wasn't hankering much for anything" +that morning. + +I've been calkilatin' to myself, Miss Budd," said Abner resignedly, +"that when two folks--like ez you and me--meet together to kinder +discuss things that might go so far ez to keep them together, if +they hez had anything of that sort in their lives afore, they ought +to speak of it confidentially like together." + +"Ef any one o' them sneakin', soulless critters in the kitchen hez +bin slingin' lies to ye about me--or carryin' tales," broke in Mary +Ellen Budd, setting every one of her thirty-two strong, white teeth +together with a snap, "well--ye might hev told me so to oncet +without spilin' my Sunday! But ez fer yer keepin' me a minit +longer, ye've only got to pay me my salary to-day and"--but here +she stopped, for the astonishment in Abner's face was too plain to +be misunderstood. + +"Nobody's been slinging any lies about ye, Miss Budd," he said +slowly, recovering himself resignedly from this last back-handed +stroke of fate; "I warn't talkin' o' you, but myself. I was only +allowin' to say that I was a di-vorced man." + +As a sudden flush came over Mary Ellen's brownish-white face while +she stared at him, Abner hastened to delicately explain. "It +wasn't no onfaithfulness, Miss Budd--no philanderin' o' mine, but +only 'incompatibility o' temper.'" + +"Temper--your temper!" gasped Mary Ellen. + +"Yes," said Abner. + +And here a sudden change came over Mary Ellen's face, and she burst +into a shriek of laughter. She laughed with her hands slapping the +sides of her skirt, she laughed with her hands clasping her narrow, +hollow waist, laughed with her head down on her knees and her +fluffy hair tumbling over it. Abner was relieved, and yet it +seemed strange to him that this revelation of his temper should +provoke such manifest incredulity in both Byers and Mary Ellen. +But perhaps these things would be made plain to him hereafter; at +present they must be accepted "in the day's work" and tolerated. + +"Your temper," gurgled Mary Ellen. "Saints alive! What kind o' +temper?" + +"Well, I reckon," returned Abner submissively, and selecting a word +to give his meaning more comprehension,--"I reckon it was kinder-- +aggeravokin'." + +Mary Ellen sniffed the air for a moment in speechless incredulity, +and then, locking her hands around her knees and bending forward, +said, "Look here! Ef that old woman o' yours ever knew what temper +was in a man; ef she's ever bin tied to a brute that treated her +like a nigger till she daren't say her soul was her own; who struck +her with his eyes and tongue when he hadn't anythin' else handy; +who made her life miserable when he was sober, and a terror when he +was drunk; who at last drove her away, and then divorced her for +desertion--then--then she might talk. But 'incompatibility o' +temper' with you! Oh, go away--it makes me sick!" + +How far Abner was impressed with the truth of this, how far it +prompted his next question, nobody but Abner knew. For he said +deliberately, "I was only goin' to ask ye, if, knowin' I was a +di-vorced man, ye would mind marryin' me!" + +Mary Ellen's face changed; the evasive instincts of her sex rose +up. "Didn't I hear ye sayin' suthin' about refreshments," she said +archly. "Mebbe you wouldn't mind gettin' me a bottle o' lemming +sody outer the bar!" + +Abner got up at once, perhaps not dismayed by this diversion, and +departed for the refreshment. As he passed along the side veranda +the recollection of Mr. Byers and his mysterious flight occurred to +him. For a wild moment he thought of imitating him. But it was +too late now--he had spoken. Besides, he had no wife to fly to, +and the thirsty or indignant Byers had--his wife! Fate was indeed +hard. He returned with the bottle of lemon soda on a tray and a +resigned spirit equal to her decrees. Mary Ellen, remarking that +he had brought nothing for himself, archly insisted upon his +sharing with her the bottle of soda, and even coquettishly touched +his lips with her glass. Abner smiled patiently. + +But here, as if playfully exhilarated by the naughty foaming soda, +she regarded him with her head--and a good deal of her blonde hair-- +very much on one side, as she said, "Do you know that all along o' +you bein' so free with me in tellin' your affairs I kinder feel +like just telling you mine?" + +"Don't," said Abner promptly. + +"Don't?" echoed Miss Budd. + +"Don't," repeated Abner. "It's nothing to me. What I said about +myself is different, for it might make some difference to you. But +nothing you could say of yourself would make any change in me. I +stick to what I said just now." + +"But," said Miss Budd,--in half real, half simulated threatening,-- +"what if it had suthin' to do with my answer to what you said just +now?" + +"It couldn't. So, if it's all the same to you, Miss Budd, I'd +rather ye wouldn't." + +"That," said the lady still more archly, lifting a playful finger, +"is your temper." + +"Mebbe it is," said Abner suddenly, with a wondering sense of +relief. + +It was, however, settled that Miss Budd should go to Sacramento to +visit her friends, that Abner would join her later, when their +engagement would be announced, and that she should not return to +the hotel until they were married. The compact was sealed by the +interchange of a friendly kiss from Miss Budd with a patient, +tolerating one from Abner, and then it suddenly occurred to them +both that they might as well return to their duties in the hotel, +which they did. Miss Budd's entire outing that Sunday lasted only +half an hour. + +A week elapsed. Miss Budd was in Sacramento, and the landlord of +the Big Flume Hotel was standing at his usual post in the doorway +during dinner, when a waiter handed him a note. It contained a +single line scrawled in pencil:-- + + +"Come out and see me behind the house as before. I dussent come in +on account of her. C. BYERS." + + +"On account of 'her'!" Abner cast a hurried glance around the +tables. Certainly Mrs. Byers was not there! He walked in the hall +and the veranda--she was not there. He hastened to the rendezvous +evidently meant by the writer, the wilderness behind the house. +Sure enough, Byers, drunk and maudlin, supporting himself by the +tree root, staggered forward, clasped him in his arms, and murmured +hoarsely,-- + +"She's gone!" + +"Gone?" echoed Abner, with a whitening face. "Mrs. Byers? Where?" + +"Run away! Never come back no more! Gone!" + +A vague idea that had been in Abner's mind since Byers's last visit +now took awful shape. Before the unfortunate Byers could collect +his senses he felt himself seized in a giant's grasp and forced +against the tree. + +"You coward!" said all that was left of the tolerant Abner--his +even voice--"you hound! Did you dare to abuse her? to lay your +vile hands on her--to strike her? Answer me." + +The shock--the grasp--perhaps Abner's words, momentarily silenced +Byers. "Did I strike her?" he said dazedly; "did I abuse her? Oh, +yes!" with deep irony. "Certainly! In course! Look yer, +pardner!"--he suddenly dragged up his sleeve from his red, hairy +arm, exposing a blue cicatrix in its centre--"that's a jab from her +scissors about three months ago; look yer!"--he bent his head and +showed a scar along the scalp--"that's her playfulness with a fire +shovel! Look yer!"--he quickly opened his collar, where his neck +and cheek were striped and crossed with adhesive plaster--"that's +all that was left o' a glass jar o' preserves--the preserves got +away, but some of the glass got stuck! That's when she heard I was +a di-vorced man and hadn't told her." + +"Were you a di-vorced man?" gasped Abner. + +"You know that; in course I was," said Byers scornfully; "d'ye +meanter say she didn't tell ye?" + +"She?" echoed Abner vaguely. "Your wife--you said just now she +didn't know it before." + +"My wife ez oncet was, I mean! Mary Ellen--your wife ez is to be," +said Byers, with deep irony. "Oh, come now. Pretend ye don't +know! Hi there! Hands off! Don't strike a man when he's down, +like I am." + +But Abner's clutch of Byers's shoulder relaxed, and he sank down to +a sitting posture on the root. In the meantime Byers, overcome by +a sense of this new misery added to his manifold grievances, gave +way to maudlin silent tears. + +"Mary Ellen--your first wife?" repeated Abner vacantly. + +"Yesh!" said Byers thickly, "my first wife--shelected and picked +out fer your shecond wife--by your first--like d----d conundrum. +How wash I t'know?" he said, with a sudden shriek of public +expostulation--"thash what I wanter know. Here I come to talk with +fr'en', like man to man, unshuspecting, innoshent as chile, about +my shecond wife! Fr'en' drops out, carryin' off the whiskey. Then +I hear all o' suddent voice o' Mary Ellen talkin' in kitchen; then +I come round softly and see Mary Ellen--my wife as useter be-- +standin' at fr'en's kitchen winder. Then I lights out quicker 'n +lightnin' and scoots! And when I gets back home, I ups and tells +my wife. And whosh fault ish't! Who shaid a man oughter tell hish +wife? You! Who keepsh other mensh' first wivesh at kishen winder +to frighten 'em to tell? You!" + +But a change had already come over the face of Abner Langworthy. +The anger, anxiety, astonishment, and vacuity that was there had +vanished, and he looked up with his usual resigned acceptance of +the inevitable as he said, "I reckon that's so! And seein' it's +so," with good-natured tolerance, he added, "I reckon I'll break +rules for oncet and stand ye another drink." + +He stood another drink and yet another, and eventually put the +doubly widowed Byers to bed in his own room. These were but +details of a larger tribulation,--and yet he knew instinctively +that his cup was not yet full. The further drop of bitterness came +a few days later in a line from Mary Ellen: "I needn't tell you +that all betwixt you and me is off, and you kin tell your old woman +that her selection for a second wife for you wuz about as bad as +your own first selection. Ye kin tell Mr. Byers--yer great friend +whom ye never let on ye knew--that when I want another husband I +shan't take the trouble to ask him to fish one out for me. It +would be kind--but confusin'." + +He never heard from her again. Mr. Byers was duly notified that +Mrs. Byers had commenced action for divorce in another state in +which concealment of a previous divorce invalidated the marriage, +but he did not respond. The two men became great friends--and +assured celibates. Yet they always spoke reverently of their +"wife," with the touching prefix of "our." + +"She was a good woman, pardner," said Byers. + +"And she understood us," said Abner resignedly. + +Perhaps she had. + + + +A BUCKEYE HOLLOW INHERITANCE + + +The four men on the "Zip Coon" Ledge had not got fairly settled to +their morning's work. There was the usual lingering hesitation +which is apt to attend the taking-up of any regular or monotonous +performance, shown in this instance in the prolonged scrutiny of a +pick's point, the solemn selection of a shovel, or the "hefting" or +weighing of a tapping-iron or drill. One member, becoming +interested in a funny paragraph he found in the scrap of newspaper +wrapped around his noonday cheese, shamelessly sat down to finish +it, regardless of the prospecting pan thrown at him by another. +They had taken up their daily routine of mining life like schoolboys +at their tasks. + +"Hello!" said Ned Wyngate, joyously recognizing a possible further +interruption. "Blamed if the Express rider ain't comin' here!" + +He was shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed over the broad +sun-baked expanse of broken "flat" between them and the highroad. +They all looked up, and saw the figure of a mounted man, with a +courier's bag thrown over his shoulder, galloping towards them. It +was really an event, as their letters were usually left at the +grocery at the crossroads. + +"I knew something was goin' to happen," said Wyngate. "I didn't +feel a bit like work this morning." + +Here one of their number ran off to meet the advancing horseman. +They watched him until they saw the latter rein up, and hand a +brown envelope to their messenger, who ran breathlessly back with +it to the Ledge as the horseman galloped away again. + +"A telegraph for Jackson Wells," he said, handing it to the young +man who had been reading the scrap of paper. + +There was a dead silence. Telegrams were expensive rarities in +those days, especially with the youthful Bohemian miners of the Zip +Coon Ledge. They were burning with curiosity, yet a singular thing +happened. Accustomed as they had been to a life of brotherly +familiarity and unceremoniousness, this portentous message from the +outside world of civilization recalled their old formal politeness. +They looked steadily away from the receiver of the telegram, and he +on his part stammered an apologetic "Excuse me, boys," as he broke +the envelope. + +There was another pause, which seemed to be interminable to the +waiting partners. Then the voice of Wells, in quite natural tones, +said, "By gum! that's funny! Read that, Dexter,--read it out loud." + +Dexter Rice, the foreman, took the proffered telegram from Wells's +hand, and read as follows:-- + + +Your uncle, Quincy Wells, died yesterday, leaving you sole heir. +Will attend you to-morrow for instructions. + +BAKER AND TWIGGS, + +Attorneys, Sacramento. + + +The three miners' faces lightened and turned joyously to Wells; but +HIS face looked puzzled. + +"May we congratulate you, Mr. Wells?" said Wyngate, with affected +politeness; "or possibly your uncle may have been English, and a +title goes with the 'prop,' and you may be Lord Wells, or Very +Wells--at least." + +But here Jackson Wells's youthful face lost its perplexity, and he +began to laugh long and silently to himself. This was protracted +to such an extent that Dexter asserted himself,--as foreman and +senior partner. + +"Look here, Jack! don't sit there cackling like a chuckle-headed +magpie, if you ARE the heir." + +"I--can't--help it," gasped Jackson. "I am the heir--but you see, +boys, there AIN'T ANY PROPERTY." + +"What do you mean? Is all that a sell?" demanded Rice. + +"Not much! Telegraph's too expensive for that sort o' feelin'. +You see, boys, I've got an Uncle Quincy, though I don't know him +much, and he MAY be dead. But his whole fixin's consisted of a +claim the size of ours, and played out long ago: a ramshackle lot +o' sheds called a cottage, and a kind of market garden of about +three acres, where he reared and sold vegetables. He was always +poor, and as for calling it 'property,' and ME the 'heir'--good +Lord!" + +"A miser, as sure as you're born!" said Wyngate, with optimistic +decision. "That's always the way. You'll find every crack of that +blessed old shed stuck full of greenbacks and certificates of +deposit, and lots of gold dust and coin buried all over that cow +patch! And of course no one suspected it! And of course he lived +alone, and never let any one get into his house--and nearly starved +himself! Lord love you! There's hundreds of such cases. The +world is full of 'em!" + +"That's so," chimed in Pulaski Briggs, the fourth partner, "and I +tell you what, Jacksey, we'll come over with you the day you take +possession, and just 'prospect' the whole blamed shanty, pigsties, +and potato patch, for fun--and won't charge you anything." + +For a moment Jackson's face had really brightened under the +infection of enthusiasm, but it presently settled into perplexity +again. + +"No! You bet the boys around Buckeye Hollow would have spotted +anything like that long ago." + +"Buckeye Hollow!" repeated Rice and his partners. + +"Yes! Buckeye Hollow, that's the place; not twenty miles from +here, and a God-forsaken hole, as you know." + +A cloud had settled on Zip Coon Ledge. They knew of Buckeye +Hollow, and it was evident that no good had ever yet come out of +that Nazareth. + +"There's no use of talking now," said Rice conclusively. "You'll +draw it all from that lawyer shark who's coming here tomorrow, and +you can bet your life he wouldn't have taken this trouble if there +wasn't suthin' in it. Anyhow, we'll knock off work now and call it +half a day, in honor of our distinguished young friend's accession +to his baronial estates of Buckeye Hollow. We'll just toddle down +to Tomlinson's at the cross-roads, and have a nip and a quiet game +of old sledge at Jacksey's expense. I reckon the estate's good for +THAT," he added, with severe gravity. "And, speaking as a fa'r- +minded man and the president of this yer Company, if Jackson would +occasionally take out and air that telegraphic dispatch of his +while we're at Tomlinson's, it might do something for that Company's +credit--with Tomlinson! We're wantin' some new blastin' plant bad!" + +Oddly enough the telegram--accidentally shown at Tomlinson's-- +produced a gratifying effect, and the Zip Coon Ledge materially +advanced in public estimation. With this possible infusion of new +capital into its resources, the Company was beset by offers of +machinery and goods; and it was deemed expedient by the sapient +Rice, that to prevent the dissemination of any more accurate +information regarding Jackson's property the next day, the lawyer +should be met at the stage office by one of the members, and +conveyed secretly past Tomlinson's to the Ledge. + +"I'd let you go," he said to Jackson, "only it won't do for that +d----d skunk of a lawyer to think you're too anxious--sabe? We want +to rub into him that we are in the habit out yer of havin' things +left to us, and a fortin' more or less, falling into us now and +then, ain't nothin' alongside of the Zip Coon claim. It won't hurt +ye to keep up a big bluff on that hand of yours. Nobody would dare +to 'call' you." + +Indeed this idea was carried out with such elaboration the next day +that Mr. Twiggs, the attorney, was considerably impressed both by +the conduct of his guide, who (although burning with curiosity) +expressed absolute indifference regarding Jackson Wells's +inheritance, and the calmness of Jackson himself, who had to be +ostentatiously called from his work on the Ledge to meet him, and +who even gave him an audience in the hearing of his partners. +Forced into an apologetic attitude, he expressed his regret at +being obliged to bother Mr. Wells with an affair of such secondary +importance, but he was obliged to carry out the formalities of the +law. + +"What do you suppose the estate is worth?" asked Wells carelessly. + +"I should not think that the house, the claim, and the land would +bring more than fifteen hundred dollars," replied Twiggs +submissively. + +To the impecunious owners of Zip Coon Ledge it seemed a large sum, +but they did not show it. + +"You see," continued Mr. Twiggs, "it's really a case of 'willing +away' property from its obvious or direct inheritors, instead of a +beneficial grant. I take it that you and your uncle were not +particularly intimate,--at least, so I gathered when I made the +will,--and his simple object was to disinherit his only daughter, +with whom he had had some quarrel, and who had left him to live +with his late wife's brother, Mr. Morley Brown, who is quite +wealthy and residing in the same township. Perhaps you remember +the young lady?" + +Jackson Wells had a dim recollection of this cousin, a hateful, +red-haired schoolgirl, and an equally unpleasant memory of this +other uncle, who was purse-proud and had never taken any notice of +him. He answered affirmatively. + +"There may be some attempt to contest the will," continued Mr. +Twiggs, "as the disinheriting of an only child and a daughter +offends the sentiment of the people and of judges and jury, and the +law makes such a will invalid, unless a reason is given. +Fortunately your uncle has placed his reasons on record. I have a +copy of the will here, and can show you the clause." He took it +from his pocket, and read as follows: "'I exclude my daughter, +Jocelinda Wells, from any benefit or provision of this my will and +testament, for the reason that she has voluntarily abandoned her +father's roof for the house of her mother's brother, Morley Brown; +has preferred the fleshpots of Egypt to the virtuous frugalities of +her own home, and has discarded the humble friends of her youth, +and the associates of her father, for the meretricious and slavish +sympathy of wealth and position. In lieu thereof, and as +compensation therefor, I do hereby give and bequeath to her my full +and free permission to gratify her frequently expressed wish for +another guardian in place of myself, and to become the adopted +daughter of the said Morley Brown, with the privilege of assuming +the name of Brown as aforesaid.' You see," he continued, "as the +young lady's present position is a better one than it would be if +she were in her father's house, and was evidently a compromise, the +sentimental consideration of her being left homeless and penniless +falls to the ground. However, as the inheritance is small, and +might be of little account to you, if you choose to waive it, I +dare say we may make some arrangement." + +This was an utterly unexpected idea to the Zip Coon Company, and +Jackson Wells was for a moment silent. But Dexter Rice was equal +to the emergency, and turned to the astonished lawyer with severe +dignity. + +"You'll excuse me for interferin', but, as the senior partner of +this yer Ledge, and Jackson Wells yer bein' a most important +member, what affects his usefulness on this claim affects us. And +we propose to carry out this yer will, with all its dips and spurs +and angles!" + +As the surprised Twiggs turned from one to the other, Rice +continued, "Ez far as we kin understand this little game, it's the +just punishment of a high-flying girl as breaks her pore old +father's heart, and the re-ward of a young feller ez has bin to our +knowledge ez devoted a nephew as they make 'em. Time and time +again, sittin' around our camp fire at night, we've heard Jacksey +say,--kinder to himself, and kinder to us, 'Now I wonder what's +gone o' old uncle Quincy;' and he never sat down to a square meal, +or ever rose from a square game, but what he allus said, 'If old +uncle Quince was only here now, boys, I'd die happy.' I leave it +to you, gentlemen, if that wasn't Jackson Wells's gait all the +time?" + +There was a prolonged murmur of assent, and an affecting +corroboration from Ned Wyngate of "That was him; that was Jacksey +all the time!" + +"Indeed, indeed," said the lawyer nervously. "I had quite the idea +that there was very little fondness"-- + +"Not on your side--not on your side," said Rice quickly. "Uncle +Quincy may not have anted up in this matter o' feelin', nor seen +his nephew's rise. You know how it is yourself in these things-- +being a lawyer and a fa'r-minded man--it's all on one side, +ginerally! There's always one who loves and sacrifices, and all +that, and there's always one who rakes in the pot! That's the way +o' the world; and that's why," continued Rice, abandoning his +slightly philosophical attitude, and laying his hand tenderly, and +yet with a singularly significant grip, on Wells's arm, "we say to +him, 'Hang on to that will, and uncle Quincy's memory.' And we hev +to say it. For he's that tender-hearted and keerless of money-- +having his own share in this Ledge--that ef that girl came +whimperin' to him he'd let her take the 'prop' and let the hull +thing slide! And then he'd remember that he had rewarded that gal +that broke the old man's heart, and that would upset him again in +his work. And there, you see, is just where WE come in! And we +say, 'Hang on to that will like grim death!'" + +The lawyer looked curiously at Rice and his companions, and then +turned to Wells: "Nevertheless, I must look to you for instructions," +he said dryly. + +But by this time Jackson Wells, although really dubious about +supplanting the orphan, had gathered the sense of his partners, and +said with a frank show of decision, "I think I must stand by the +will." + +"Then I'll have it proved," said Twiggs, rising. "In the meantime, +if there is any talk of contesting"-- + +"If there is, you might say," suggested Wyngate, who felt he had +not had a fair show in the little comedy,--"ye might say to that +old skeesicks of a wife's brother, if he wants to nipple in, that +there are four men on the Ledge--and four revolvers! We are +gin'rally fa'r-minded, peaceful men, but when an old man's heart is +broken, and his gray hairs brought down in sorrow to the grave, so +to speak, we're bound to attend the funeral--sabe?" + +When Mr. Twiggs had departed again, accompanied by a partner to +guide him past the dangerous shoals of Tomlinson's grocery, Rice +clapped his hand on Wells's shoulder. "If it hadn't been for me, +sonny, that shark would have landed you into some compromise with +that red-haired gal! I saw you weakenin', and then I chipped in. +I may have piled up the agony a little on your love for old Quince, +but if you aren't an ungrateful cub, that's how you ought to hev +been feein', anyhow!" + +Nevertheless, the youthful Wells, although touched by his elder +partner's loyalty, and convinced of his own disinterestedness, felt +a painful sense of lost chivalrous opportunity. + + . . . . . . + +On mature consideration it was finally settled that Jackson Wells +should make his preliminary examination of his inheritance alone, +as it might seem inconsistent with the previous indifferent +attitude of his partners if they accompanied him. But he was +implored to yield to no blandishments of the enemy, and to even +make his visit a secret. + +He went. The familiar flower-spiked trees which had given their +name to Buckeye Hollow had never yielded entirely to improvements +and the incursions of mining enterprise, and many of them had even +survived the disused ditches, the scarred flats, the discarded +levels, ruined flumes, and roofless cabins of the earlier +occupation, so that when Jackson Wells entered the wide, straggling +street of Buckeye, that summer morning was filled with the radiance +of its blossoms and fragrant with their incense. His first visit +there, ten years ago, had been a purely perfunctory and hasty one, +yet he remembered the ostentatious hotel, built in the "flush time" +of its prosperity, and already in a green premature decay; he +recalled the Express Office and Town Hall, also passing away in a +kind of similar green deliquescence; the little zinc church, now +overgrown with fern and brambles, and the two or three fine +substantial houses in the outskirts, which seemed to have sucked +the vitality of the little settlement. One of these--he had been +told--was the property of his rich and wicked maternal uncle, the +hated appropriator of his red-headed cousin's affections. He +recalled his brief visit to the departed testator's claim and +market garden, and his by no means favorable impression of the +lonely, crabbed old man, as well as his relief that his +objectionable cousin, whom he had not seen since he was a boy, was +then absent at the rival uncle's. He made his way across the road +to a sunny slope where the market garden of three acres seemed to +roll like a river of green rapids to a little "run" or brook, +which, even in the dry season, showed a trickling rill. But here +he was struck by a singular circumstance. The garden rested in a +rich, alluvial soil, and under the quickening Californian sky had +developed far beyond the ability of its late cultivator to restrain +or keep it in order. Everything had grown luxuriantly, and in +monstrous size and profusion. The garden had even trespassed its +bounds, and impinged upon the open road, the deserted claims, and +the ruins of the past. Stimulated by the little cultivation Quincy +Wells had found time to give it, it had leaped its three acres and +rioted through the Hollow. There were scarlet runners crossing the +abandoned sluices, peas climbing the court-house wall, strawberries +matting the trail, while the seeds and pollen of its few homely +Eastern flowers had been blown far and wide through the woods. By +a grim satire, Nature seemed to have been the only thing that still +prospered in that settlement of man. + +The cabin itself, built of unpainted boards, consisted of a +sitting-room, dining-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, all plainly +furnished, although one of the bedrooms was better ordered, and +displayed certain signs of feminine decoration, which made Jackson +believe it had been his cousin's room. Luckily, the slight, +temporary structure bore no deep traces of its previous occupancy +to disturb him with its memories, and for the same reason it gained +in cleanliness and freshness. The dry, desiccating summer wind +that blew through it had carried away both the odors and the sense +of domesticity; even the adobe hearth had no fireside tales to +tell,--its very ashes had been scattered by the winds; and the +gravestone of its dead owner on the hill was no more flavorless of +his personality than was this plain house in which he had lived and +died. The excessive vegetation produced by the stirred-up soil had +covered and hidden the empty tin cans, broken boxes, and fragments +of clothing which usually heaped and littered the tent-pegs of the +pioneer. Nature's own profusion had thrust them into obscurity. +Jackson Wells smiled as he recalled his sanguine partner's idea of +a treasure-trove concealed and stuffed in the crevices of this +tenement, already so palpably picked clean by those wholesome +scavengers of California, the dry air and burning sun. Yet he was +not displeased at this obliteration of a previous tenancy; there +was the better chance for him to originate something. He whistled +hopefully as he lounged, with his hands in his pockets, towards the +only fence and gate that gave upon the road. Something stuck up on +the gate-post attracted his attention. It was a sheet of paper +bearing the inscription in a large hand: "Notice to trespassers. +Look out for the Orphan Robber!" A plain signboard in faded black +letters on the gate, which had borne the legend: "Quincy Wells, +Dealer in Fruit and Vegetables," had been rudely altered in chalk +to read: "Jackson Wells, Double Dealer in Wills and Codicils," and +the intimation "Bouquets sold here" had been changed to "Bequests +stole here." For an instant the simple-minded Jackson failed to +discover any significance of this outrage, which seemed to him to +be merely the wanton mischief of a schoolboy. But a sudden +recollection of the lawyer's caution sent the blood to his cheeks +and kindled his indignation. He tore down the paper and rubbed out +the chalk interpolation--and then laughed at his own anger. +Nevertheless, he would not have liked his belligerent partners to +see it. + +A little curious to know the extent of this feeling, he entered one +of the shops, and by one or two questions which judiciously +betrayed his ownership of the property, he elicited only a +tradesman's interest in a possible future customer, and the +ordinary curiosity about a stranger. The barkeeper of the hotel +was civil, but brief and gloomy. He had heard the property was +"willed away on account of some family quarrel which "warn't none +of his." Mr. Wells would find Buckeye Hollow a mighty dull place +after the mines. It was played out, sucked dry by two or three big +mine owners who were trying to "freeze out" the other settlers, so +as they might get the place to themselves and "boom it." Brown, +who had the big house over the hill, was the head devil of the +gang! Wells felt his indignation kindle anew. And this girl that +he had ousted was Brown's friend. Was it possible that she was a +party to Brown's designs to get this three acres with the other +lands? If so, his long-suffering uncle was only just in his +revenge. + +He put all this diffidently before his partners on his return, and +was a little startled at their adopting it with sanguine ferocity. +They hoped that he would put an end to his thoughts of backing out +of it. Such a course now would be dishonorable to his uncle's +memory. It was clearly his duty to resist these blasted satraps of +capitalists; he was providentially selected for the purpose--a +village Hampden to withstand the tyrant. "And I reckon that shark +of a lawyer knew all about it when he was gettin' off that 'purp +stuff' about people's sympathies with the girl," said Rice +belligerently. "Contest the will, would he? Why, if we caught +that Brown with a finger in the pie we'd just whip up the boys on +this Ledge and lynch him. You hang on to that three acres and the +garden patch of your forefathers, sonny, and we'll see you through!" + +Nevertheless, it was with some misgivings that Wells consented that +his three partners should actually accompany him and see him put in +peaceable possession of his inheritance. His instinct told him +that there would be no contest of the will, and still less any +opposition on the part of the objectionable relative, Brown. When +the wagon which contained his personal effects and the few articles +of furniture necessary for his occupancy of the cabin arrived, the +exaggerated swagger which his companions had put on in their +passage through the settlement gave way to a pastoral indolence, +equally half real, half affected. Lying on their backs under a +buckeye, they permitted Rice to voice the general sentiment. +"There's a suthin' soothin' and dreamy in this kind o' life, +Jacksey, and we'll make a point of comin' here for a couple of days +every two weeks to lend you a hand; it will be a mighty good change +from our nigger work on the claim." + +In spite of this assurance, and the fact that they had voluntarily +come to help him put the place in order, they did very little +beyond lending a cheering expression of unqualified praise and +unstinted advice. At the end of four hours' weeding and trimming +the boundaries of the garden, they unanimously gave their opinion +that it would be more systematic for him to employ Chinese labor at +once. + +"You see," said Ned Wyngate, "the Chinese naturally take to this +kind o' business. Why, you can't take up a china plate or saucer +but you see 'em pictured there working at jobs like this, and they +kin live on green things and rice that cost nothin', and chickens. +You'll keep chickens, of course." + +Jackson thought that his hands would be full enough with the +garden, but he meekly assented. + +"I'll get a pair--you only want two to begin with," continued +Wyngate cheerfully, "and in a month or two you've got all you want, +and eggs enough for market. On second thoughts, I don't know +whether you hadn't better begin with eggs first. That is, you +borry some eggs from one man and a hen from another. Then you set +'em, and when the chickens are hatched out you just return the hen +to the second man, and the eggs, when your chickens begin to lay, +to the first man, and you've got your chickens for nothing--and +there you are." + +This ingenious proposition, which was delivered on the last slope +of the domain, where the partners were lying exhausted from their +work, was broken in upon by the appearance of a small boy, +barefooted, sunburnt, and tow-headed, who, after a moment's hurried +scrutiny of the group, threw a letter with unerring precision into +the lap of Jackson Wells, and then fled precipitately. Jackson +instinctively suspected he was connected with the outrage on his +fence and gate-post, but as he had avoided telling his partners of +the incident, fearing to increase their belligerent attitude, he +felt now an awkward consciousness mingled with his indignation as +he broke the seal and read as follows:-- + + +SIR,--This is to inform you that although you have got hold of the +property by underhanded and sneaking ways, you ain't no right to +touch or lay your vile hands on the Cherokee Rose alongside the +house, nor on the Giant of Battles, nor on the Maiden's Pride by +the gate--the same being the property of Miss Jocelinda Wells, and +planted by her, under the penalty of the Law. And if you, or any +of your gang of ruffians, touches it or them, or any thereof, or +don't deliver it up when called for in good order, you will be +persecuted by them. + +AVENGER. + + +It is to be feared that Jackson would have suppressed this also, +but the keen eyes of his partners, excited by the abruptness of the +messenger, were upon him. He smiled feebly, and laid the letter +before them. But he was unprepared for their exaggerated +indignation, and with difficulty restrained them from dashing off +in the direction of the vanished herald. "And what could you do?" +he said. "The boy's only a messenger." + +"I'll get at that d----d skunk Brown, who's back of him," said +Dexter Rice. + +"And what then?" persisted Jackson, with a certain show of +independence. "If this stuff belongs to the girl, I'm not certain +I shan't give them up without any fuss. Lord! I want nothing but +what the old man left me--and certainly nothing of HERS." + +Here Ned Wyngate was heard to murmur that Jackson was one of those +men who would lie down and let coyotes crawl over him if they first +presented a girl's visiting card, but he was stopped by Rice +demanding paper and pencil. The former being torn from a +memorandum book, and a stub of the latter produced from another +pocket, he wrote as follows:-- + + +SIR,--In reply to the hogwash you have kindly exuded in your letter +of to-day, I have to inform you that you can have what you ask for +Miss Wells, and perhaps a trifle on your own account, by calling +this afternoon on--Yours truly-- + + +"Now, sign it," continued Rice, handing him the pencil. + +"But this will look as if we were angry and wanted to keep the +plants," protested Wells. + +"Never you mind, sonny, but sign! Leave the rest to your partners, +and when you lay your head on your pillow to-night return thanks to +an overruling Providence for providing you with the right gang of +ruffians to look after you!" + +Wells signed reluctantly, and Wyngate offered to find a Chinaman in +the gulch who would take the missive. "And being a Chinaman, Brown +can do any cussin' or buck talk THROUGH him!" he added. + +The afternoon wore on; the tall Douglas pines near the water pools +wheeled their long shadows round and halfway up the slope, and the +sun began to peer into the faces of the reclining men. Subtle +odors of mint and southern-wood, stragglers from the garden, +bruised by their limbs, replaced the fumes of their smoked-out +pipes, and the hammers of the woodpeckers were busy in the grove as +they lay lazily nibbling the fragrant leaves like peaceful +ruminants. Then came the sound of approaching wheels along the +invisible highway beyond the buckeyes, and then a halt and silence. +Rice rose slowly, bright pin points in the pupils of his gray eyes. + +"Bringin' a wagon with him to tote the hull shanty away," suggested +Wyngate. + +"Or fetched his own ambulance," said Briggs. + +Nevertheless, after a pause, the wheels presently rolled away again. + +"We'd better go and meet him at the gate," said Rice, hitching his +revolver holster nearer his hip. "That wagon stopped long enough +to put down three or four men." + +They walked leisurely but silently to the gate. It is probable +that none of them believed in a serious collision, but now the +prospect had enough possibility in it to quicken their pulses. +They reached the gate. But it was still closed; the road beyond it +empty. + +"Mebbe they've sneaked round to the cabin," said Briggs, "and are +holdin' it inside." + +They were turning quickly in that direction, when Wyngate said, +"Hush!--some one's there in the brush under the buckeyes." + +They listened; there was a faint rustling in the shadows. + +"Come out o' that, Brown--into the open. Don't be shy," called out +Rice in cheerful irony. "We're waitin' for ye." + +But Briggs, who was nearest the wood, here suddenly uttered an +exclamation,--"B'gosh!" and fell back, open-mouthed, upon his +companions. They too, in another moment, broke into a feeble +laugh, and lapsed against each other in sheepish silence. For a +very pretty girl, handsomely dressed, swept out of the wood and +advanced towards them. + +Even at any time she would have been an enchanting vision to these +men, but in the glow of exercise and sparkle of anger she was +bewildering. Her wonderful hair, the color of freshly hewn +redwood, had escaped from her hat in her passage through the +underbrush, and even as she swept down upon them in her majesty she +was jabbing a hairpin into it with a dexterous feminine hand. + +The three partners turned quite the color of her hair; Jackson +Wells alone remained white and rigid. She came on, her very short +upper lip showing her white teeth with her panting breath. + +Rice was first to speak. "I beg--your pardon, Miss--I thought it +was Brown--you know," he stammered. + +But she only turned a blighting brown eye on the culprit, curled +her short lip till it almost vanished in her scornful nostrils, +drew her skirt aside with a jerk, and continued her way straight to +Jackson Wells, where she halted. + +"We did not know you were--here alone," he said apologetically. + +"Thought I was afraid to come alone, didn't you? Well, you see, +I'm not. There!" She made another dive at her hat and hair, and +brought the hat down wickedly over her eyebrows. "Gimme my plants." + +Jackson had been astonished. He would have scarcely recognized in +this willful beauty the red-haired girl whom he had boyishly hated, +and with whom he had often quarreled. But there was a recollection-- +and with that recollection came an instinct of habit. He looked +her squarely in the face, and, to the horror of his partners, said, +"Say please!" + +They had expected to see him fall, smitten with the hairpin! But +she only stopped, and then in bitter irony said, "Please, Mr. +Jackson Wells." + +"I haven't dug them up yet--and it would serve you just right if I +made you get them for yourself. But perhaps my friends here might +help you--if you were civil." + +The three partners seized spades and hoes and rushed forward +eagerly. "Only show us what you want," they said in one voice. +The young girl stared at them, and at Jackson. Then with swift +determination she turned her back scornfully upon him, and with a +dazzling smile which reduced the three men to absolute idiocy, said +to the others, "I'll show YOU," and marched away to the cabin. + +"Ye mustn't mind Jacksey," said Rice, sycophantically edging to her +side, "he's so cut up with losin' your father that he loved like a +son, he isn't himself, and don't seem to know whether to ante up or +pass out. And as for yourself, Miss--why-- What was it he was +sayin' only just as the young lady came?" he added, turning +abruptly to Wyngate. + +"Everything that cousin Josey planted with her own hands must be +took up carefully and sent back--even though it's killin' me to +part with it," quoted Wyngate unblushingly, as he slouched along on +the other side. + +Miss Wells's eyes glared at them, though her mouth still smiled +ravishingly. "I'm sure I'm troubling you." + +In a few moments the plants were dug up and carefully laid +together; indeed, the servile Briggs had added a few that she had +not indicated. + +"Would you mind bringing them as far as the buggy that's coming +down the hill?" she said, pointing to a buggy driven by a small boy +which was slowly approaching the gate. The men tenderly lifted the +uprooted plants, and proceeded solemnly, Miss Wells bringing up the +rear, towards the gate, where Jackson Wells was still surlily +lounging. + +They passed out first. Miss Wells lingered for an instant, and +then advancing her beautiful but audacious face within an inch of +Jackson's, hissed out, "Make-believe! and hypocrite!" + +"Cross-patch and sauce-box!" returned Jackson readily, still under +the malign influence of his boyish past, as she flounced away. + +Presently he heard the buggy rattle away with his persecutor. But +his partners still lingered on the road in earnest conversation, +and when they did return it was with a singular awkwardness and +embarrassment, which he naturally put down to a guilty consciousness +of their foolish weakness in succumbing to the girl's demands. + +But he was a little surprised when Dexter Rice approached him +gloomily. "Of course," he began, "it ain't no call of ours to +interfere in family affairs, and you've a right to keep 'em to +yourself, but if you'd been fair and square and above board in what +you got off on us about this per--" + +"What do you mean?" demanded the astonished Wells. + +"Well--callin' her a 'red-haired gal.'" + +"Well--she is a red-haired girl!" said Wells impatiently. + +"A man," continued Rice pityingly, "that is so prejudiced as to +apply such language to a beautiful orphan--torn with grief at the +loss of a beloved but d----d misconstruing parent--merely because +she begs a few vegetables out of his potato patch, ain't to be +reasoned with. But when you come to look at this thing by and +large, and as a fa'r-minded man, sonny, you'll agree with us that +the sooner you make terms with her the better. Considerin' your +interest, Jacksey,--let alone the claims of humanity,--we've +concluded to withdraw from here until this thing is settled. She's +sort o' mixed us up with your feelings agin her, and naturally +supposed we object to the color of her hair! and bein' a penniless +orphan, rejected by her relations"-- + +"What stuff are you talking?" burst in Jackson. "Why, YOU saw she +treated you better than she did me." + +"Steady! There you go with that temper of yours that frightened +the girl! Of course she could see that WE were fa'r-minded men, +accustomed to the ways of society, and not upset by the visit of a +lady, or the givin' up of a few green sticks! But let that slide! +We're goin' back home to-night, sonny, and when you've thought this +thing over and are straightened up and get your right bearin's, +we'll stand by you as before. We'll put a man on to do your work +on the Ledge, so ye needn't worry about that." + +They were quite firm in this decision,--however absurd or obscure +their conclusions,--and Jackson, after his first flash of +indignation, felt a certain relief in their departure. But +strangely enough, while he had hesitated about keeping the property +when they were violently in favor of it, he now felt he was right in +retaining it against their advice to compromise. The sentimental +idea had vanished with his recognition of his hateful cousin in the +role of the injured orphan. And for the same odd reason her +prettiness only increased his resentment. He was not deceived,--it +was the same capricious, willful, red-haired girl. + +The next day he set himself to work with that dogged steadiness +that belonged to his simple nature, and which had endeared him to +his partners. He set half a dozen Chinamen to work, and followed, +although apparently directing, their methods. The great difficulty +was to restrain and control the excessive vegetation, and he +matched the small economies of the Chinese against the opulence of +the Californian soil. The "garden patch" prospered; the neighbors +spoke well of it and of him. But Jackson knew that this fierce +harvest of early spring was to be followed by the sterility of the +dry season, and that irrigation could alone make his work +profitable in the end. He brought a pump to force the water from +the little stream at the foot of the slope to the top, and allowed +it to flow back through parallel trenches. Again Buckeye +applauded! Only the gloomy barkeeper shook his head. "The moment +you get that thing to pay, Mr. Wells, you'll find the hand of +Brown, somewhere, getting ready to squeeze it dry!" + +But Jackson Wells did not trouble himself about Brown, whom he +scarcely knew. Once indeed, while trenching the slope, he was +conscious that he was watched by two men from the opposite bank; +but they were apparently satisfied by their scrutiny, and turned +away. Still less did he concern himself with the movements of his +cousin, who once or twice passed him superciliously in her buggy on +the road. Again, she met him as one of a cavalcade of riders, +mounted on a handsome but ill-tempered mustang, which she was +managing with an ill-temper and grace equal to the brute's, to the +alternate delight and terror of her cavalier. He could see that +she had been petted and spoiled by her new guardian and his friends +far beyond his conception. But why she should grudge him the +little garden and the pastoral life for which she was so unsuited, +puzzled him greatly. + +One afternoon he was working near the road, when he was startled by +an outcry from his Chinese laborers, their rapid dispersal from the +strawberry beds where they were working, the splintering crash of +his fence rails, and a commotion among the buckeyes. Furious at +what seemed to him one of the usual wanton attacks upon coolie +labor, he seized his pick and ran to their assistance. But he was +surprised to find Jocelinda's mustang caught by the saddle and +struggling between two trees, and its unfortunate mistress lying +upon the strawberry bed. Shocked but cool-headed, Jackson released +the horse first, who was lashing out and destroying everything +within his reach, and then turned to his cousin. But she had +already lifted herself to her elbow, and with a trickle of blood +and mud on one fair cheek was surveying him scornfully under her +tumbled hair and hanging hat. + +"You don't suppose I was trespassing on your wretched patch again, +do you?" she said in a voice she was trying to keep from breaking. +"It was that brute--who bolted." + +"I don't suppose you were bullying ME this time," he said, "but you +were YOUR HORSE--or it wouldn't have happened. Are you hurt?" + +She tried to move; he offered her his hand, but she shied from it +and struggled to her feet. She took a step forward--but limped. + +"If you don't want my arm, let me call a Chinaman," he suggested. + +She glared at him. "If you do I'll scream!" she said in a low +voice, and he knew she would. But at the same moment her face +whitened, at which he slipped his arm under hers in a dexterous, +business-like way, so as to support her weight. Then her hat got +askew, and down came a long braid over his shoulder. He remembered +it of old, only it was darker than then and two or three feet +longer. + +"If you could manage to limp as far as the gate and sit down on the +bank, I'd get your horse for you," he said. "I hitched it to a +sapling." + +"I saw you did--before you even offered to help me," she said +scornfully. + +"The horse would have got away--YOU couldn't." + +"If you only knew how I hated you," she said, with a white face, +but a trembling lip. + +"I don't see how that would make things any better," he said. +"Better wipe your face; it's scratched and muddy, and you've been +rubbing your nose in my strawberry bed." + +She snatched his proffered handkerchief suddenly, applied it to her +face, and said: "I suppose it looks dreadful." + +"Like a pig's," he returned cheerfully. + +She walked a little more firmly after this, until they reached the +gate. He seated her on the bank, and went back for the mustang. +That beautiful brute, astounded and sore from its contact with the +top rail and brambles, was cowed and subdued as he led it back. + +She had finished wiping her face, and was hurriedly disentangling +two stinging tears from her long lashes, before she threw back his +handkerchief. Her sprained ankle obliged him to lift her into the +saddle and adjust her little shoe in the stirrup. He remembered +when it was still smaller. "You used to ride astride," he said, a +flood of recollection coming over him, "and it's much safer with +your temper and that brute." + +"And you," she said in a lower voice, "used to be"-- But the rest +of her sentence was lost in the switch of the whip and the jump of +her horse, but he thought the word was "kinder." + +Perhaps this was why, after he watched her canter away, he went +back to the garden, and from the bruised and trampled strawberry +bed gathered a small basket of the finest fruit, covered them with +leaves, added a paper with the highly ingenious witticism, "Picked +up with you," and sent them to her by one of the Chinamen. Her +forcible entry moved Li Sing, his foreman, also chief laundryman to +the settlement, to reminiscences: + +"Me heap knew Missy Wells and ole man, who go dead. Ole man allee +time make chin music to Missy. Allee time jaw jaw--allee time make +lows--allee time cuttee up Missy! Plenty time lockee up Missy +topside house; no can walkee--no can talkee--no hab got--how can +get?--must washee washee allee same Chinaman. Ole man go dead-- +Missy all lightee now. Plenty fun. Plenty stay in Blown's big +house, top-side hill; Blown first-chop man." + +Had he inquired he might have found this pagan testimony, for once, +corroborated by the Christian neighbors. + +But another incident drove all this from his mind. The little +stream--the life blood of his garden--ran dry! Inquiry showed that +it had been diverted two miles away into Brown's ditch! Wells's +indignant protest elicited a formal reply from Brown, stating that +he owned the adjacent mining claims, and reminding him that mining +rights to water took precedence of the agricultural claim, but +offering, by way of compensation, to purchase the land thus made +useless and sterile. Jackson suddenly recalled the prophecy of the +gloomy barkeeper. The end, had come! But what could the scheming +capitalist want with the land, equally useless--as his uncle had +proved--for mining purposes? Could it be sheer malignity, incited +by his vengeful cousin? But here he paused, rejecting the idea as +quickly as it came. No! his partners were right! He was a +trespasser on his cousin's heritage--there was no luck in it--he +was wrong, and this was his punishment! Instead of yielding +gracefully as he might, he must back down now, and she would never +know his first real feelings. Even now he would make over the +property to her as a free gift. But his partners had advanced him +money from their scanty means to plant and work it. He believed +that an appeal to their feelings would persuade them to forego even +that, but he shrank even more from confessing his defeat to THEM +than to her. + +He had little heart in his labors that day, and dismissed the +Chinamen early. He again examined his uncle's old mining claim on +the top of the slope, but was satisfied that it had been a hopeless +enterprise and wisely abandoned. It was sunset when he stood under +the buckeyes, gloomily looking at the glow fade out of the west, as +it had out of his boyish hopes. He had grown to like the place. +It was the hour, too, when the few flowers he had cultivated gave +back their pleasant odors, as if grateful for his care. And then +he heard his name called. + +It was his cousin, standing a few yards from him in evident +hesitation. She was quite pale, and for a moment he thought she +was still suffering from her fall, until he saw in her nervous, +half-embarrassed manner that it had no physical cause. Her old +audacity and anger seemed gone, yet there was a queer determination +in her pretty brows. + +"Good-evening," he said. + +She did not return his greeting, but pulling uneasily at her glove, +said hesitatingly: "Uncle has asked you to sell him this land?" + +"Yes." + +"Well--don't!" she burst out abruptly. + +He stared at her. + +"Oh, I'm not trying to keep you here," she went on, flashing back +into her old temper; "so you needn't stare like that. I say, +'Don't,' because it ain't right, it ain't fair." + +"Why, he's left me no alternative," he said. + +"That's just it--that's why it's mean and low. I don't care if he +is our uncle." + +Jackson was bewildered and shocked. + +"I know it's horrid to say it," she said, with a white face; "but +it's horrider to keep it in! Oh, Jack! when we were little, and +used to fight and quarrel, I never was mean--was I? I never was +underhanded--was I? I never lied--did I? And I can't lie now. +Jack," she looked hurriedly around her, "HE wants to get hold of +the land--HE thinks there's gold in the slope and bank by the +stream. He says dad was a fool to have located his claim so high +up. Jack! did you ever prospect the bank?" + +A dawning of intelligence came upon Jackson. "No," he said; "but," +he added bitterly, "what's the use? He owns the water now,--I +couldn't work it." + +"But, Jack, IF you found the color, this would be a MINING claim! +You could claim the water right; and, as it's your land, your claim +would be first!" + +Jackson was startled. "Yes, IF I found the color." + +"You WOULD find it." + +"WOULD?" + +"Yes! I DID--on the sly! Yesterday morning on your slope by the +stream, when no one was up! I washed a panful and got that." She +took a piece of tissue paper from her pocket, opened it, and shook +into her little palm three tiny pin points of gold. + +"And that was your own idea, Jossy?" + +"Yes!" + +"Your very own?" + +"Honest Injin!" + +"Wish you may die?" + +"True, O King!" + +He opened his arms, and they mutually embraced. Then they +separated, taking hold of each other's hands solemnly, and falling +back until they were at arm's length. Then they slowly extended +their arms sideways at full length, until this action naturally +brought their faces and lips together. They did this with the +utmost gravity three times, and then embraced again, rocking on +pivoted feet like a metronome. Alas! it was no momentary +inspiration. The most casual and indifferent observer could see +that it was the result of long previous practice and shameless +experience. And as such--it was a revelation and an explanation. + + . . . . . . + +"I always suspected that Jackson was playin' us about that red- +haired cousin," said Rice two weeks later; "but I can't swallow +that purp stuff about her puttin' him up to that dodge about a new +gold discovery on a fresh claim, just to knock out Brown. No, sir. +He found that gold in openin' these irrigatin' trenches,--the usual +nigger luck, findin' what you're not lookin' arter." + +"Well, we can't complain, for he's offered to work it on shares +with us," said Briggs. + +"Yes--until he's ready to take in another partner." + +"Not--Brown?" said his horrified companions. + +"No!--but Brown's adopted daughter--that red-haired cousin!" + + + +THE REINCARNATION OF SMITH + + +The extravagant supper party by which Mr. James Farendell celebrated +the last day of his bachelorhood was protracted so far into the +night, that the last guest who parted from him at the door of the +principal Sacramento restaurant was for a moment impressed with the +belief that a certain ruddy glow in the sky was already the dawn. +But Mr. Farendell had kept his head clear enough to recognize it as +the light of some burning building in a remote business district, a +not infrequent occurrence in the dry season. When he had dismissed +his guest he turned away in that direction for further information. +His own counting-house was not in that immediate neighborhood, but +Sacramento had been once before visited by a rapid and far-sweeping +conflagration, and it behooved him to be on the alert even on this +night of festivity. + +Perhaps also a certain anxiety arose out of the occasion. He was to +be married to-morrow to the widow of his late partner, and the +marriage, besides being an attractive one, would settle many +business difficulties. He had been a fortunate man, but, like many +more fortunate men, was not blind to the possibilities of a change +of luck. The death of his partner in a successful business had at +first seemed to betoken that change, but his successful, though +hasty, courtship of the inexperienced widow had restored his chances +without greatly shocking the decorum of a pioneer community. +Nevertheless, he was not a contented man, and hardly a determined-- +although an energetic one. + +A walk of a few moments brought him to the levee of the river,--a +favored district, where his counting-house, with many others, was +conveniently situated. In these early days only a few of these +buildings could be said to be permanent,--fire and flood perpetually +threatened them. They were merely temporary structures of wood, or +in the case of Mr. Farendell's office, a shell of corrugated iron, +sheathing a one-storied wooden frame, more or less elaborate in its +interior decorations. By the time he had reached it, the distant +fire had increased. On his way he had met and recognized many of +his business acquaintances hurrying thither,--some to save their +own property, or to assist the imperfectly equipped volunteer fire +department in their unselfish labors. It was probably Mr. +Farendell's peculiar preoccupation on that particular night which +had prevented his joining in their brotherly zeal. + +He unlocked the iron door, and lit the hanging lamp that was used +in all-night sittings on steamer days. It revealed a smartly +furnished office, with a high desk for his clerks, and a smaller +one for himself in one corner. In the centre of the wall stood a +large safe. This he also unlocked and took out a few important +books, as well as a small drawer containing gold coin and dust to +the amount of about five hundred dollars, the large balance having +been deposited in bank on the previous day. The act was only +precautionary, as he did not exhibit any haste in removing them to +a place of safety, and remained meditatively absorbed in looking +over a packet of papers taken from the same drawer. The closely +shuttered building, almost hermetically sealed against light, and +perhaps sound, prevented his observing the steadily increasing +light of the conflagration, or hearing the nearer tumult of the +firemen, and the invasion of his quiet district by other equally +solicitous tenants. The papers seemed also to possess some +importance, for, the stillness being suddenly broken by the turning +of the handle of the heavy door he had just closed, and its opening +with difficulty, his first act was to hurriedly conceal them, +without apparently paying a thought to the exposed gold before him. +And his expression and attitude in facing round towards the door +was quite as much of nervous secretiveness as of indignation at the +interruption. + +Yet the intruder appeared, though singular, by no means formidable. +He was a man slightly past the middle age, with a thin face, +hollowed at the cheeks and temples as if by illness or asceticism, +and a grayish beard that encircled his throat like a soiled worsted +"comforter" below his clean-shaven chin and mouth. His manner was +slow and methodical, and even when he shot the bolt of the door +behind him, the act did not seem aggressive. Nevertheless Mr. +Farendell half rose with his hand on his pistol-pocket, but the +stranger merely lifted his own hand with a gesture of indifferent +warning, and, drawing a chair towards him, dropped into it +deliberately. + +Mr. Farendell's angry stare changed suddenly to one of surprised +recognition. "Josh Scranton," he said hesitatingly. + +"I reckon," responded the stranger slowly. "That's the name I +allus bore, and YOU called yourself Farendell. Well, we ain't seen +each other sens the spring o' '50, when ye left me lying nigh +petered out with chills and fever on the Stanislaus River, and sold +the claim that me and Duffy worked under our very feet, and +skedaddled for 'Frisco!" + +"I only exercised my right as principal owner, and to secure my +advances," began the late Mr. Farendell sharply. + +But again the thin hand was raised, this time with a slow, scornful +waiving of any explanations. "It ain't that in partickler that +I've kem to see ye for to-night," said the stranger slowly, "nor it +ain't about your takin' the name o' 'Farendell,' that friend o' +yours who died on the passage here with ye, and whose papers ye +borrowed! Nor it ain't on account o' that wife of yours ye left +behind in Missouri, and whose letters you never answered. It's +them things all together--and suthin' else!" + +"What the d---l do you want, then?" said Farendell, with a +desperate directness that was, however, a tacit confession of the +truth of these accusations. + +"Yer allowin' that ye'll get married tomorrow?" said Scranton +slowly. + +"Yes, and be d----d to you," said Farendell fiercely. + +"Yer NOT," returned Scranton. "Not if I knows it. Yer goin' to +climb down. Yer goin' to get up and get! Yer goin' to step down +and out! Yer goin' to shut up your desk and your books and this +hull consarn inside of an hour, and vamose the ranch. Arter an +hour from now thar won't be any Mr. Farendell, and no weddin' +to-morrow." + +"If that's your game--perhaps you'd like to murder me at once?" +said Farendell with a shifting eye, as his hand again moved towards +his revolver. + +But again the thin hand of the stranger was also lifted. "We ain't +in the business o' murderin' or bein' murdered, or we might hev kem +here together, me and Duffy. Now if anything happens to me Duffy +will be left, and HE'S got the proofs." + +Farendell seemed to recognize the fact with the same directness. +"That's it, is it?" he said bluntly. "Well, how much do you want? +Only, I warn you that I haven't much to give." + +"Wotever you've got, if it was millions, it ain't enough to buy us +up, and ye ought to know that by this time," responded Scranton, +with a momentary flash in his eyes. But the next moment his +previous passionless deliberation returned, and leaning his arm on +the desk of the man before him he picked up a paperweight +carelessly and turned it over as he said slowly, "The fact is, Mr. +Farendell, you've been making us, me and Duffy, tired. We've bin +watchin' you and your doin's, lyin' low and sayin' nothin', till we +concluded that it was about time you handed in your checks and left +the board. We ain't wanted nothin' of ye, we ain't begrudged ye +nothin', but we've allowed that this yer thing must stop." + +"And what if I refuse?" said Farendell. + +"Thar'll be some cussin' and a big row from YOU, I kalkilate--and +maybe some fightin' all round," said Scranton dispassionately. +"But it will be all the same in the end. The hull thing will come +out, and you'll hev to slide just the same. T'otherwise, ef ye +slide out NOW, it's without a row." + +"And do you suppose a business man like me can disappear without a +fuss over it?" said Farendell angrily. "Are you mad?" + +"I reckon the hole YOU'LL make kin be filled up," said Scranton +dryly. "But ef ye go NOW, you won't be bothered by the fuss, while +if you stay you'll have to face the music, and go too!" + +Farendell was silent. Possibly the truth of this had long since +been borne upon him. No one but himself knew the incessant strain +of these years of evasion and concealment, and how he often had +been near to some such desperate culmination. The sacrifice +offered to him was not, therefore, so great as it might have +seemed. The knowledge of this might have given him a momentary +superiority over his antagonist had Scranton's motive been a purely +selfish or malignant one, but as it was not, and as he may have had +some instinctive idea of Farendell's feeling also, it made his +ultimatum appear the more passionless and fateful. And it was this +quality which perhaps caused Farendell to burst out with desperate +abruptness,-- + +"What in h-ll ever put you up to this!" + +Scranton folded his arms upon Farendell's desk, and slowly wiping +his clean jaw with one hand, repeated deliberately, "Wall--I reckon +I told ye that before! You've been making us--me and Duffy-- +tired!" He paused for a moment, and then, rising abruptly, with a +careless gesture towards the uncovered tray of gold, said, "Come! +ye kin take enuff o' that to get away with; the less ye take, +though, the less likely you'll be to be followed!" + +He went to the door, unlocked and opened it. A strange light, as +of a lurid storm interspersed by sheet-like lightning, filled the +outer darkness, and the silence was now broken by dull crashes and +nearer cries and shouting. A few figures were also dimly flitting +around the neighboring empty offices, some of which, like +Farendell's, had been entered by their now alarmed owners. + +"You've got a good chance now," continued Scranton; "ye couldn't +hev a better. It's a big fire--a scorcher--and jest the time for a +man to wipe himself out and not be missed. Make tracks where the +crowd is thickest and whar ye're likely to be seen, ez ef ye were +helpin'! Ther' 'll be other men missed tomorrow beside you," he +added with grim significance; "but nobody'll know that you was one +who really got away." + +Where the imperturbable logic of the strange man might have failed, +the noise, the tumult, the suggestion of swift-coming disaster, and +the necessity for some immediate action of any kind, was convincing. +Farendell hastily stuffed his pockets with gold and the papers he +had found, and moved to the door. Already he fancied he felt the +hot breath of the leaping conflagration beyond. "And you?" he said, +turning suspiciously to Scranton. + +"When you're shut of this and clean off, I'll fix things and leave +too--but not before. I reckon," he added grimly, with a glance at +the sky, now streaming with sparks like a meteoric shower, "thar +won't be much left here in the morning." + +A few dull embers pattered on the iron roof of the low building and +bounded off in ashes. Farendell cast a final glance around him, +and then darted from the building. The iron door clanged behind +him--he was gone. + +Evidently not too soon, for the other buildings were already +deserted by their would-be salvors, who had filled the streets with +piles of books and valuables waiting to be carried away. Then +occurred a terrible phenomenon, which had once before in such +disasters paralyzed the efforts of the firemen. A large wooden +warehouse in the centre of the block of offices, many hundred feet +from the scene of active conflagration--which had hitherto remained +intact--suddenly became enveloped in clouds of smoke, and without +warning burst as suddenly from roof and upper story into vivid +flame. There were eye-witnesses who declared that a stream of +living fire seemed to leap upon it from the burning district, and +connected the space between them with an arch of luminous heat. In +another instant the whole district was involved in a whirlwind of +smoke and flame, out of whose seething vortex the corrugated iron +buildings occasionally showed their shriveling or glowing outlines. +And then the fire swept on and away. + +When the sun again arose over the panic-stricken and devastated +city, all personal incident and disaster was forgotten in the +larger calamity. It was two or three days before the full +particulars could be gathered--even while the dominant and +resistless energy of the people was erecting new buildings upon the +still-smoking ruins. It was only on the third day afterwards that +James Farendell, on the deck of a coasting steamer, creeping out +through the fogs of the Golden Gate, read the latest news in a San +Francisco paper brought by the pilot. As he hurriedly comprehended +the magnitude of the loss, which was far beyond his previous +conception, he experienced a certain satisfaction in finding his +position no worse materially than that of many of his fellow +workers. THEY were ruined like himself; THEY must begin their life +afresh--but then! Ah! there was still that terrible difference. +He drew his breath quickly, and read on. Suddenly he stopped, +transfixed by a later paragraph. For an instant he failed to grasp +its full significance. Then he read it again, the words imprinting +themselves on his senses with a slow deliberation that seemed to +him as passionless as Scranton's utterances on that fateful night. + +"The loss of life, it is now feared, is much greater than at first +imagined. To the list that has been already published we must add +the name of James Farendell, the energetic contractor so well known +to our citizens, who was missing the morning after the fire. His +calcined remains were found this afternoon in the warped and +twisted iron shell of his counting-house, the wooden frame having +been reduced to charcoal in the intense heat. The unfortunate man +seems to have gone there to remove his books and papers,--as was +evidenced by the iron safe being found open,--but to have been +caught and imprisoned in the building through the heat causing the +metal sheathing to hermetically seal the doors and windows. He was +seen by some neighbors to enter the building while the fire was +still distant, and his remains were identified by his keys, which +were found beneath him. A poignant interest is added to his +untimely fate by the circumstance that he was to have been married +on the following day to the widow of his late partner, and that he +had, at the call of duty, that very evening left a dinner party +given to celebrate the last day of his bachelorhood--or, as it has +indeed proved, of his earthly existence. Two families are thus +placed in mourning, and it is a singular sequel that by this +untoward calamity the well-known firm of Farendell & Cutler may be +said to have ceased to exist." + +Mr. Farendell started to his feet. But a lurch of the schooner as +she rose on the long swell of the Pacific sent him staggering +dizzily back to his seat, and checked his first wild impulse to +return. He saw it all now,--the fire had avenged him by wiping out +his persecutor, Scranton, but in the eyes of his contemporaries it +had only erased HIM! He might return to refute the story in his +own person, but the dead man's partner still lived with his secret, +and his own rehabilitation could only revive his former peril. + + . . . . . . + +Four years elapsed before the late Mr. Farendell again set foot in +the levee of Sacramento. The steamboat that brought him from San +Francisco was a marvel to him in size, elegance, and comfort; so +different from the little, crowded, tri-weekly packet he +remembered; and it might, in a manner, have prepared him for the +greater change in the city. But he was astounded to find nothing +to remind him of the past,--no landmark, nor even ruin, of the +place he had known. Blocks of brick buildings, with thoroughfares +having strange titles, occupied the district where his counting- +house had stood, and even obliterated its site; equally strange +names were upon the shops and warehouses. In his four years' +wanderings he had scarcely found a place as unfamiliar. He had +trusted to the great change in his own appearance--the full beard +that he wore and the tanning of a tropical sun--to prevent +recognition; but the precaution was unnecessary, there were none to +recognize him in the new faces which were the only ones he saw in +the transformed city. A cautious allusion to the past which he had +made on the boat to a fellow passenger had brought only the +surprised rejoinder, "Oh, that must have been before the big fire," +as if it was an historic epoch. There was something of pain even +in this assured security of his loneliness. His obliteration was +complete. + +For the late Mr. Farendell had suffered some change of mind with +his other mutations. He had been singularly lucky. The schooner +in which he had escaped brought him to Acapulco, where, as a +returning Californian, and a presumably successful one, his +services and experience were eagerly sought by an English party +engaged in developing certain disused Mexican mines. As the post, +however, was perilously near the route of regular emigration, as +soon as he had gained a sufficient sum he embarked with some goods +to Callao, where he presently established himself in business, +resuming his REAL name--the unambitious but indistinctive one of +"Smith." It is highly probable that this prudential act was also +his first step towards rectitude. For whether the change was a +question of moral ethics, or merely a superstitious essay in luck, +he was thereafter strictly honest in business. He became +prosperous. He had been sustained in his flight by the intention +that, if he were successful elsewhere, he would endeavor to +communicate with his abandoned fiancee, and ask her to join him, +and share not his name but fortune in exile. But as he grew rich, +the difficulties of carrying out this intention became more +apparent; he was by no means certain of her loyalty surviving the +deceit he had practiced and the revelation he would have to make; +he was doubtful of the success of any story which at other times he +would have glibly invented to take the place of truth. Already +several months had elapsed since his supposed death; could he +expect her to be less accessible to premature advances now than +when she had been a widow? Perhaps this made him think of the wife +he had deserted so long ago. He had been quite content to live +without regret or affection, forgetting and forgotten, but in his +present prosperity he felt there was some need of putting his +domestic affairs into a more secure and legitimate shape, to avert +any catastrophe like the last. HERE at least would be no +difficulty; husbands had deserted their wives before this in +Californian emigration, and had been heard of only after they had +made their fortune. Any plausible story would be accepted by HER +in the joy of his reappearance; or if, indeed, as he reflected with +equal complacency, she was dead or divorced from him through his +desertion--a sufficient cause in her own State--and re-married, he +would at least be more secure. He began, without committing +himself, by inquiry and anonymous correspondence. His wife, he +learnt, had left Missouri for Sacramento only a month or two after +his own disappearance from that place, and her address was unknown! + +A complication so unlooked for disquieted him, and yet whetted his +curiosity. The only person she might meet in California who could +possibly identify him with the late Mr. Farendell was Duffy; he had +often wondered if that mysterious partner of Scranton's had been +deceived with the others, or had ever suspected that the body +discovered in the counting-house was Scranton's. If not, he must +have accepted the strange coincidence that Scranton had disappeared +also the same night. In the first six months of his exile he had +searched the Californian papers thoroughly, but had found no record +of any doubt having been thrown on the accepted belief. It was +these circumstances, and perhaps a vague fascination not unlike +that which impels the malefactor to haunt the scene of his crime, +that, at the end of four years, had brought him, a man of middle +age and assured occupation and fortune, back to the city he had +fled from. + +A few days at one of the new hotels convinced him thoroughly that +he was in no danger of recognition, and gave him the assurance to +take rooms more in keeping with his circumstances and his own +frankly avowed position as the head of a South American house. A +cautious acquaintance--through the agency of his banker--with a few +business men gave him some occupation, and the fact of his South +American letters being addressed to Don Diego Smith gave a foreign +flavor to his individuality, which his tanned face and dark beard +had materially helped. A stronger test convinced him how complete +was the obliteration of his former identity. One day at the bank +he was startled at being introduced by the manager to a man whom he +at once recognized as a former business acquaintance. But the +shock was his alone; the formal approach and unfamiliar manner of +the man showed that he had failed to recognize even a resemblance. +But would he equally escape detection by his wife if he met her as +accidentally,--an encounter not to be thought of until he knew +something more of her? He became more cautious in going to public +places, but luckily for him the proportion of women to men was +still small in California, and they were more observed than +observing. + +A month elapsed; in that time he had thoroughly exhausted the local +Directories in his cautious researches among the "Smiths," for in +his fear of precipitating a premature disclosure he had given up +his former anonymous advertising. And there was a certain +occupation in this personal quest that filled his business time. +He was in no hurry. He had a singular faith that he would +eventually discover her whereabouts, be able to make all necessary +inquiries into her conduct and habits, and perhaps even enjoy a +brief season of unsuspected personal observation before revealing +himself. And this faith was as singularly rewarded. + +Having occasion to get his watch repaired one day he entered a +large jeweler's shop, and while waiting its examination his +attention was attracted by an ordinary old-fashioned daguerreotype +case in the form of a heart-shaped locket lying on the counter with +other articles left for repairs. Something in its appearance +touched a chord in his memory; he lifted the half-opened case and +saw a much faded daguerreotype portrait of himself taken in +Missouri before he left in the Californian emigration. He +recognized it at once as one he had given to his wife; the faded +likeness was so little like his present self that he boldly +examined it and asked the jeweler one or two questions. The man +was communicative. Yes, it was an old-fashioned affair which had +been left for repairs a few days ago by a lady whose name and +address, written by herself, were on the card tied to it. + +Mr. James Smith had by this time fully controlled the emotion he +felt as he recognized his wife's name and handwriting, and knew +that at last the clue was found! He laid down the case carelessly, +gave the final directions for the repairs of his watch, and left +the shop. The address, of which he had taken a mental note, was, +to his surprise, very near his own lodgings; but he went straight +home. Here a few inquiries of his janitor elicited the information +that the building indicated in the address was a large one of +furnished apartments and offices like his own, and that the "Mrs. +Smith" must be simply the housekeeper of the landlord, whose name +appeared in the Directory, but not her own. Yet he waited until +evening before he ventured to reconnoitre the premises; with the +possession of his clue came a slight cooling of his ardor and +extreme caution in his further proceedings. The house--a +reconstructed wooden building--offered no external indication of +the rooms she occupied in the uniformly curtained windows that +front the street. Yet he felt an odd and pleasurable excitement in +passing once or twice before those walls that hid the goal of his +quest. As yet he had not seen her, and there was naturally the +added zest of expectation. He noticed that there was a new +building opposite, with vacant offices to let. A project suddenly +occurred to him, which by morning he had fully matured. He hired a +front room in the first floor of the new building, had it hurriedly +furnished as a private office, and on the second morning of his +discovery was installed behind his desk at the window commanding a +full view of the opposite house. There was nothing strange in the +South American capitalist selecting a private office in so popular +a locality. + +Two or three days elapsed without any result from his espionage. +He came to know by sight the various tenants, the two Chinese +servants, and the solitary Irish housemaid, but as yet had no +glimpse of the housekeeper. She evidently led a secluded life +among her duties; it occurred to him that perhaps she went out, +possibly to market, earlier than he came, or later, after he had +left the office. In this belief he arrived one morning after an +early walk in a smart spring shower, the lingering straggler of the +winter rains. There were few people astir, yet he had been +preceded for two or three blocks by a tall woman whose umbrella +partly concealed her head and shoulders from view. He had noticed, +however, even in his abstraction, that she walked well, and managed +the lifting of her skirt over her trim ankles and well-booted feet +with some grace and cleverness. Yet it was only on her unexpectedly +turning the corner of his own street that he became interested. She +continued on until within a few doors of his office, when she +stopped to give an order to a tradesman, who was just taking down +his shutters. He heard her voice distinctly; in the quick emotion +it gave him he brushed hurriedly past her without lifting his eyes. +Gaining his own doorway he rushed upstairs to his office, hastily +unlocked it, and ran to the window. The lady was already crossing +the street. He saw her pause before the door of the opposite house, +open it with a latchkey, and caught a full view of her profile in +the single moment that she turned to furl her umbrella and enter. +It was his wife's voice he had heard; it was his wife's face that he +had seen in profile. + +Yet she was changed from the lanky young schoolgirl he had wedded +ten years ago, or, at least, compared to what his recollection of +her had been. Had he ever seen her as she really was? Surely +somewhere in that timid, freckled, half-grown bride he had known in +the first year of their marriage the germ of this self-possessed, +matured woman was hidden. There was the tone of her voice; he had +never recalled it before as a lover might, yet now it touched him; +her profile he certainly remembered, but not with the feeling it +now produced in him. Would he have ever abandoned her had she been +like that? Or had HE changed, and was this no longer his old +self?--perhaps even a self SHE would never recognize again? James +Smith had the superstitions of a gambler, and that vague idea of +fate that comes to weak men; a sudden fright seized him, and he +half withdrew from the window lest she should observe him, +recognize him, and by some act precipitate that fate. + +By lingering beyond the usual hour for his departure he saw her +again, and had even a full view of her face as she crossed the +street. The years had certainly improved her; he wondered with a +certain nervousness if she would think they had done the same for +him. The complacency with which he had at first contemplated her +probable joy at recovering him had become seriously shaken since he +had seen her; a woman as well preserved and good-looking as that, +holding a certain responsible and, no doubt, lucrative position, +must have many admirers and be independent. He longed to tell her +now of his fortune, and yet shrank from the test its exposure +implied. He waited for her return until darkness had gathered, and +then went back to his lodgings a little chagrined and ill at ease. +It was rather late for her to be out alone! After all, what did he +know of her habits or associations? He recalled the freedom of +Californian life, and the old scandals relating to the lapses of +many women who had previously led blameless lives in the Atlantic +States. Clearly it behooved him to be cautious. Yet he walked +late that night before the house again, eager to see if she had +returned, and with WHOM? He was restricted in his eagerness by the +fear of detection, but he gathered very little knowledge of her +habits; singularly enough nobody seemed to care. A little piqued +at this, he began to wonder if he were not thinking too much of +this woman to whom he still hesitated to reveal himself. +Nevertheless, he found himself that night again wandering around +the house, and even watching with some anxiety the shadow which he +believed to be hers on the window-blind of the room where he had by +discreet inquiry located her. Whether his memory was stimulated by +his quest he never knew, but presently he was able to recall step +by step and incident by incident his early courtship of her and the +brief days of their married life. He even remembered the day she +accepted him, and even dwelt upon it with a sentimental thrill that +he probably never felt at the time, and it was a distinct feature +of his extraordinary state of mind and its concentration upon this +particular subject that he presently began to look upon HIMSELF as +the abandoned and deserted conjugal partner, and to nurse a feeling +of deep injury at her hands! The fact that he was thinking of her, +and she, probably, contented with her lot, was undisturbed by any +memory of him, seemed to him a logical deduction of his superior +affection. + +It was, therefore, quite as much in the attitude of a reproachful +and avenging husband as of a merely curious one that, one +afternoon, seeing her issue from her house at an early hour, he +slipped down the stairs and began to follow her at a secure +distance. She turned into the principal thoroughfare, and +presently made one of the crowd who were entering a popular place +of amusement where there was an afternoon performance. So complete +was his selfish hallucination, that he smiled bitterly at this +proof of heartless indifference, and even so far overcame his +previous caution as to actually brush by her somewhat rudely as he +entered the building at the same moment. He was conscious that she +lifted her eyes a little impatiently to the face of the awkward +stranger; he was equally, but more bitterly, conscious that she had +not recognized him! He dropped into a seat behind her; she did not +look at him again with even a sense of disturbance; the momentary +contact had evidently left no impression upon her. She glanced +casually at her neighbors on either side, and presently became +absorbed in the performance. When it was over she rose, and on her +way out recognized and exchanged a few words with one or two +acquaintances. Again he heard her familiar voice, almost at his +elbow, raised with no more consciousness of her contiguity to him +than if he were a mere ghost. The thought struck him for the first +time with a hideous and appalling significance. What was he but a +ghost to her--to every one! A man dead, buried, and forgotten! +His vanity and self-complacency vanished before this crushing +realization of the hopelessness of his existence. Dazed and +bewildered, he mingled blindly and blunderingly with the departing +crowd, tossed here and there as if he were an invisible presence, +stumbling over the impeding skirts of women with a vague apology +they heeded not, and which seemed in his frightened ears as hollow +as a voice from the grave. + +When he at last reached the street he did not look back, but +wandered abstractedly through by-streets in the falling rain, +scarcely realizing where he was, until he found himself drenched +through, with his closed umbrella in his tremulous hand, standing +at the half-submerged levee beside the overflowed river. Here +again he realized how completely he had been absorbed and +concentrated in his search for his wife during the last three +weeks; he had never been on the levee since his arrival. He had +taken no note of the excitement of the citizens over the alarming +reports of terrible floods in the mountains, and the daily and +hourly fear that they experienced of disastrous inundation from the +surcharged river. He had never thought of it, yet he had read of +it, and even talked, and yet now for the first time in his selfish, +blind absorption was certain of it. He stood still for some time, +watching doggedly the enormous yellow stream laboring with its +burden and drift from many a mountain town and camp, moving +steadily and fatefully towards the distant bay, and still more +distant and inevitable ocean. For a few moments it vaguely +fascinated and diverted him; then it as vaguely lent itself to his +one dominant, haunting thought. Yes, it was pointing him the only +way out,--the path to the distant ocean and utter forgetfulness +again! + +The chill of his saturated clothing brought him to himself once +more, he turned and hurried home. He went tiredly to his bedroom, +and while changing his garments there came a knock at the door. It +was the porter to say that a lady had called, and was waiting for +him in the sitting-room. She had not given her name. + +The closed door prevented the servant from seeing the extraordinary +effect produced by this simple announcement upon the tenant. For +one instant James Smith remained spellbound in his chair. It was +characteristic of his weak nature and singular prepossession that +he passed in an instant from the extreme of doubt to the extreme of +certainty and conviction. It was his wife! She had recognized him +in that moment of encounter at the entertainment; had found his +address, and had followed him here! He dressed himself with +feverish haste, not, however, without a certain care of his +appearance and some selection of apparel, and quickly forecast the +forthcoming interview in his mind. For the pendulum had swung +back; Mr. James Smith was once more the self-satisfied, self- +complacent, and discreetly cautious husband that he had been at the +beginning of his quest, perhaps with a certain sense of grievance +superadded. He should require the fullest explanations and +guarantees before committing himself,--indeed, her present call +might be an advance that it would be necessary for him to check. +He even pictured her pleading at his feet; a very little stronger +effort of his Alnaschar imagination would have made him reject her +like the fatuous Persian glass peddler. + +He opened the door of the sitting-room deliberately, and walked in +with a certain formal precision. But the figure of a woman arose +from the sofa, and with a slight outcry, half playful, half +hysterical, threw herself upon his breast with the single +exclamation, "Jim!" He started back from the double shock. For +the woman was NOT his wife! A woman extravagantly dressed, still +young, but bearing, even through her artificially heightened color, +a face worn with excitement, excess, and premature age. Yet a face +that as he disengaged himself from her arms grew upon him with a +terrible recognition, a face that he had once thought pretty, +inexperienced, and innocent,--the face of the widow of his former +partner, Cutler, the woman he was to have married on the day he +fled. The bitter revulsion of feeling and astonishment was +evidently visible in his face, for she, too, drew back for a moment +as they separated. But she had evidently been prepared, if not +pathetically inured to such experiences. She dropped into a chair +again with a dry laugh, and a hard metallic voice, as she said,-- + +"Well, it's YOU, anyway--and you can't get out of it." + +As he still stared at her, in her inconsistent finery, draggled and +wet by the storm, at her limp ribbons and ostentatious jewelry, she +continued, in the same hard voice,-- + +"I thought I spotted you once or twice before; but you took no +notice of me, and I reckoned I was mistaken. But this afternoon at +the Temple of Music"-- + +"Where?" said James Smith harshly. + +"At the Temple--the San Francisco Troupe performance--where you +brushed by me, and I heard your voice saying, 'Beg pardon!' I +says, 'That's Jim Farendell.'" + +"Farendell!" burst out James Smith, half in simulated astonishment, +half in real alarm. + +"Well! Smith, then, if you like better," said the woman impatiently; +"though it's about the sickest and most played-out dodge of a name +you could have pitched upon. James Smith, Don Diego Smith!" she +repeated, with a hysteric laugh. "Why, it beats the nigger +minstrels all hollow! Well, when I saw you there, I said, 'That's +Jim Farendell, or his twin brother;' I didn't say 'his ghost,' mind +you; for, from the beginning, even before I knew it all, I never +took any stock in that fool yarn about your burnt bones being found +in your office." + +"Knew all, knew what?" demanded the man, with a bravado which he +nevertheless felt was hopeless. + +She rose, crossed the room, and, standing before him, placed one +hand upon her hip as she looked at him with half-pitying effrontery. + +"Look here, Jim," she began slowly, "do you know what you're doing? +Well, you're making me tired!" In spite of himself, a half- +superstitious thrill went through him as her words and attitude +recalled the dead Scranton. "Do you suppose that I don't know that +you ran away the night of the fire? Do you suppose that I don't +know that you were next to ruined that night, and that you took +that opportunity of skedaddling out of the country with all the +money you had left, and leaving folks to imagine you were burnt up +with the books you had falsified and the accounts you had doctored! +It was a mean thing for you to do to me, Jim, for I loved you then, +and would have been fool enough to run off with you if you'd told +me all, and not left me to find out that you had lost MY money-- +every cent Cutler had left me in the business--with the rest." + +With the fatuousness of a weak man cornered, he clung to unimportant +details. "But the body was believed to be mine by every one," he +stammered angrily. "My papers and books were burnt,--there was no +evidence." + +"And why was there not?" she said witheringly, staring doggedly in +his face. "Because I stopped it! Because when I knew those bones +and rags shut up in that office weren't yours, and was beginning to +make a row about it, a strange man came to me and said they were +the remains of a friend of his who knew your bankruptcy and had +come that night to warn you,--a man whom you had half ruined once, +a man who had probably lost his life in helping you away. He said +if I went on making a fuss he'd come out with the whole truth--how +you were a thief and a forger, and"--she stopped. + +"And what else?" he asked desperately, dreading to hear his wife's +name next fall from her lips. + +"And that--as it could be proved that his friend knew your +secrets," she went on in a frightened, embarrassed voice, "you +might be accused of making away with him." + +For a moment James Smith was appalled; he had never thought of +this. As in all his past villainy he was too cowardly to +contemplate murder, he was frightened at the mere accusation of it. +"But," he stammered, forgetful of all save this new terror, "he +KNEW I wouldn't be such a fool, for the man himself told me Duffy +had the papers, and killing him wouldn't have helped me." + +Mrs. Cutler stared at him a moment searchingly, and then turned +wearily away. "Well," she said, sinking into her chair again, "he +said if I'd shut my mouth he'd shut his--and--I did. And this," +she added, throwing her hands from her lap, a gesture half of +reproach and half of contempt,--"this is what I get for it." + +More frightened than touched by the woman's desperation, James +Smith stammered a vague apologetic disclaimer, even while he was +loathing with a revulsion new to him her draggled finery, her still +more faded beauty, and the half-distinct consciousness of guilt +that linked her to him. But she waved it away, a weary gesture +that again reminded him of the dead Scranton. + +"Of course I ain't what I was, but who's to blame for it? When you +left me alone without a cent, face to face with a lie, I had to do +something. I wasn't brought up to work; I like good clothes, and +you know it better than anybody. I ain't one of your stage +heroines that go out as dependants and governesses and die of +consumption, but I thought," she went on with a shrill, hysterical +laugh, more painful than the weariness which inevitably followed +it, "I thought I might train myself to do it, ON THE STAGE! and I +joined Barker's Company. They said I had a face and figure for the +stage; that face and figure wore out before I had anything more to +show, and I wasn't big enough to make better terms with the +manager. They kept me nearly a year doing chambermaids and fairy +queens the other side of the footlights, where I saw you today. +Then I kicked! I suppose I might have married some fool for his +money, but I was soft enough to think you might be sending for me +when you were safe. You seem to be mighty comfortable here," she +continued, with a bitter glance around his handsomely furnished +room, "as 'Don Diego Smith.' I reckon skedaddling pays better than +staying behind." + +"I have only been here a few weeks," he said hurriedly. "I never +knew what had become of you, or that you were still here"-- + +"Or you wouldn't have come," she interrupted, with a bitter laugh. +"Speak out, Jim." + +"If there--is anything--I can do--for you," he stammered, "I'm +sure"-- + +"Anything you can do?" she repeated, slowly and scornfully. +"Anything you can do NOW? Yes!" she screamed, suddenly rising, +crossing the room, and grasping his arms convulsively. "Yes! Take +me away from here--anywhere--at once! Look, Jim," she went on +feverishly, "let bygones be bygones--I won't peach! I won't tell +on you--though I had it in my heart when you gave me the go-by just +now! I'll do anything you say--go to your farthest hiding-place-- +work for you--only take me out of this cursed place." + +Her passionate pleading stung even through his selfishness and +loathing. He thought of his wife's indifference! Yes, he might be +driven to this, and at least he must secure the only witness +against his previous misconduct. "We will see," he said soothingly, +gently loosening her hands. "We must talk it over." He stopped as +his old suspiciousness returned. "But you must have some friends," +he said searchingly, "some one who has helped you." + +"None! Only one--he helped me at first," she hesitated--"Duffy." + +"Duffy!" said James Smith, recoiling. + +"Yes, when he had to tell me all," she said in half-frightened +tones, "he was sorry for me. Listen, Jim! He was a square man, +for all he was devoted to his partner--and you can't blame him for +that. I think he helped me because I was alone; for nothing else, +Jim. I swear it! He helped me from time to time. Maybe he might +have wanted to marry me if he had not been waiting for another +woman that he loved, a married woman that had been deserted years +ago by her husband, just as you might have deserted me if we'd been +married that day. He helped her and paid for her journey here to +seek her husband, and set her up in business." + +"What are you talking about--what woman?" stammered James Smith, +with a strange presentiment creeping over him. + +"A Mrs. Smith. Yes," she said quickly, as he started, "not a sham +name like yours, but really and truly SMITH--that was her husband's +name! I'm not lying, Jim," she went on, evidently mistaking the +cause of the sudden contraction of the man's face. "I didn't +invent her nor her name; there IS such a woman, and Duffy loves +her--and HER only, and he never, NEVER was anything more than a +friend to me. I swear it!" + +The room seemed to swim around him. She was staring at him, but he +could see in her vacant eyes that she had no conception of his +secret, nor knew the extent of her revelation. Duffy had not dared +to tell all! He burst into a coarse laugh. "What matters Duffy or +the silly woman he'd try to steal away from other men." + +"But he didn't try to steal her, and she's only silly because she +wants to be true to her husband while he lives. She told Duffy +she'd never marry him until she saw her husband's dead face. More +fool she," she added bitterly. + +"Until she saw her husband's dead face," was all that James Smith +heard of this speech. His wife's faithfulness through years of +desertion, her long waiting and truthfulness, even the bitter +commentary of the equally injured woman before him, were to him as +nothing to what that single sentence conjured up. He laughed +again, but this time strangely and vacantly. "Enough of this Duffy +and his intrusion in my affairs until I'm able to settle my account +with him. Come," he added brusquely, "if we are going to cut out +of this at once I've got much to do. Come here again to-morrow, +early. This Duffy--does he live here?" + +"No. In Marysville." + +"Good! Come early to-morrow." + +As she seemed to hesitate, he opened a drawer of his table and took +out a handful of gold, and handed it to her. She glanced at it for +a moment with a strange expression, put it mechanically in her +pocket, and then looking up at him said, with a forced laugh, "I +suppose that means I am to clear out?" + +"Until to-morrow," he said shortly. + +"If the Sacramento don't sweep us away before then," she interrupted, +with a reckless laugh; "the river's broken through the levee--a +clear sweep in two places. Where I live the water's up to the +doorstep. They say it's going to be the biggest flood yet. You're +all right here; you're on higher ground." + +She seemed to utter these sentences abstractedly, disconnectedly, +as if to gain time. He made an impatient gesture. + +"All right, I'm going," she said, compressing her lips slowly to +keep them from trembling. "You haven't forgotten anything?" As he +turned half angrily towards her she added, hurriedly and bitterly, +"Anything--for to-morrow?" + +"No!" + +She opened the door and passed out. He listened until the trail of +her wet skirt had descended the stairs, and the street door had +closed behind her. Then he went back to his table and began +collecting his papers and putting them away in his trunks, which he +packed feverishly, yet with a set and determined face. He wrote +one or two letters, which he sealed and left upon his table. He +then went to his bedroom and deliberately shaved off his disguising +beard. Had he not been so preoccupied in one thought, he might +have been conscious of loud voices in the street and a hurrying of +feet on the wet sidewalk. But he was possessed by only one idea. +He must see his wife that evening! How, he knew not yet, but the +way would appear when he had reached his office in the building +opposite hers. Three hours had elapsed before he had finished his +preparations. On going downstairs he stopped to give some +directions to the porter, but his room was empty; passing into the +street he was surprised to find it quite deserted, and the shops +closed; even a drinking saloon at the corner was quite empty. He +turned the corner of the street, and began the slight descent +towards his office. To his amazement the lower end of the street, +which was crossed by the thoroughfare which was his destination, +was blocked by a crowd of people. As he hurried forward to join +them he suddenly saw, moving down that thoroughfare, what appeared +to his startled eyes to be the smokestacks of some small, flat- +bottomed steamer. He rubbed his eyes; it was no illusion, for the +next moment he had reached the crowd, who were standing half a +block away from the thoroughfare, and on the edge of a lagoon of +yellow water, whose main current was the thoroughfare he was +seeking, and between whose houses, submerged to their first +stories, a steamboat was really paddling. Other boats and rafts +were adrift on its sluggish waters, and a boatman had just landed a +passenger in the backwater of the lower half of the street on which +he stood with the crowd. + +Possessed of his one idea, he fought his way desperately to the +water edge and the boat, and demanded a passage to his office. The +boatman hesitated, but James Smith promptly offered him double the +value of his craft. The act was not deemed singular in that +extravagant epoch, and the sympathizing crowd cheered his solitary +departure, as he declined even the services of the boatman. The +next moment he was off in mid-stream of the thoroughfare, paddling +his boat with a desperate but inexperienced hand until he reached +his office, which he entered by the window. The building, which +was new and of brick, showed very little damage from the flood, but +in far different case was the one opposite, on which his eyes were +eagerly bent, and whose cheap and insecure foundations he could see +the flood was already undermining. There were boats around the +house, and men hurriedly removing trunks and valuables, but the one +figure he expected to see was not there. He tied his own boat to +the window; there was evidently no chance of an interview now, but +if she were leaving there would be still the chance of following +her and knowing her destination. As he gazed she suddenly appeared +at a window, and was helped by a boatman into a flat-bottomed barge +containing trunks and furniture. She was evidently the last to +leave. The other boats put off at once, and none too soon; for +there was a warning cry, a quick swerving of the barge, and the end +of the dwelling slowly dropped into the flood, seeming to sink on +its knees like a stricken ox. A great undulation of yellow water +swept across the street, inundating his office through the open +window and half swamping his boat beside it. At the same time he +could see that the current had changed and increased in volume and +velocity, and, from the cries and warning of the boatmen, he knew +that the river had burst its banks at its upper bend. He had +barely time to leap into his boat and cast it off before there was +a foot of water on his floor. + +But the new current was carrying the boats away from the higher +level, which they had been eagerly seeking, and towards the channel +of the swollen river. The barge was first to feel its influence, +and was hurried towards the river against the strongest efforts of +its boatmen. One by one the other and smaller boats contrived to +get into the slack water of crossing streets, and one was swamped +before his eyes. But James Smith kept only the barge in view. His +difficulty in following it was increased by his inexperience in +managing a boat, and the quantity of drift which now charged the +current. Trees torn by their roots from some upland bank; sheds, +logs, timber, and the bloated carcasses of cattle choked the +stream. All the ruin worked by the flood seemed to be compressed +in this disastrous current. Once or twice he narrowly escaped +collision with a heavy beam or the bed of some farmer's wagon. +Once he was swamped by a tree, and righted his frail boat while +clinging to its branches. + +And then those who watched him from the barge and shore said +afterwards that a great apathy seemed to fall upon him. He no +longer attempted to guide the boat or struggle with the drift, but +sat in the stern with intent forward gaze and motionless paddles. +Once they strove to warn him, called to him to make an effort to +reach the barge, and did what they could, in spite of their own +peril, to alter their course and help him. But he neither answered +nor heeded them. And then suddenly a great log that they had just +escaped seemed to rise up under the keel of his boat, and it was +gone. After a moment his face and head appeared above the current, +and so close to the stern of the barge that there was a slight cry +from the woman in it, but the next moment, and before the boatman +could reach him, he was drawn under it and disappeared. They lay +on their oars eagerly watching, but the body of James Smith was +sucked under the barge, and, in the mid-channel of the great river, +was carried out towards the distant sea. + + . . . . . . + +There was a strange meeting that night on the deck of a relief +boat, which had been sent out in search of the missing barge, +between Mrs. Smith and a grave and anxious passenger who had +chartered it. When he had comforted her, and pointed out, as, +indeed, he had many times before, the loneliness and insecurity of +her unprotected life, she yielded to his arguments. But it was not +until many months after their marriage that she confessed to him on +that eventful night she thought she had seen in a moment of great +peril the vision of the dead face of her husband uplifted to her +through the water. + + + +LANTY FOSTER'S MISTAKE + + +Lanty Foster was crouching on a low stool before the dying kitchen +fire, the better to get its fading radiance on the book she was +reading. Beyond, through the open window and door, the fire was +also slowly fading from the sky and the mountain ridge whence the +sun had dropped half an hour before. The view was uphill, and the +sky-line of the hill was marked by two or three gibbet-like poles +from which, on a now invisible line between them, depended certain +objects--mere black silhouettes against the sky--which bore weird +likeness to human figures. Absorbed as she was in her book, she +nevertheless occasionally cast an impatient glance in that +direction, as the sunlight faded more quickly than her fire. For +the fluttering objects were the "week's wash" which had to be +brought in before night fell and the mountain wind arose. It was +strong at that altitude, and before this had ravished the clothes +from the line, and scattered them along the highroad leading over +the ridge, once even lashing the shy schoolmaster with a pair of +Lanty's own stockings, and blinding the parson with a really +tempestuous petticoat. + +A whiff of wind down the big-throated chimney stirred the log +embers on the hearth, and the girl jumped to her feet, closing the +book with an impatient snap. She knew her mother's voice would +follow. It was hard to leave her heroine at the crucial moment of +receiving an explanation from a presumed faithless lover, just to +climb a hill and take in a lot of soulless washing, but such are +the infelicities of stolen romance reading. She threw the clothes- +basket over her head like a hood, the handle resting across her +bosom and shoulders, and with both her hands free started out of +the cabin. But the darkness had come up from the valley in one +stride after its mountain fashion, had outstripped her, and she was +instantly plunged in it. Still the outline of the ridge above her +was visible, with the white, steadfast stars that were not there a +moment ago, and by that sign she knew she was late. She had to +battle against the rushing wind now, which sung through the +inverted basket over her head and held her back, but with bent +shoulders she at last reached the top of the ridge and the level. +Yet here, owing to the shifting of the lighter background above +her, she now found herself again encompassed with the darkness. +The outlines of the poles had disappeared, the white fluttering +garments were distinct apparitions waving in the wind, like dancing +ghosts. But there certainly was a queer misshapen bulk moving +beyond, which she did not recognize, and as she at last reached one +of the poles, a shock was communicated to it, through the clothes- +line and the bulk beyond. Then she heard a voice say impatiently,-- + +"What in h-ll am I running into now?" + +It was a man's voice, and, from its elevation, the voice of a man +on horseback. She answered without fear and with slow +deliberation,-- + +"Inter our clothes-line, I reckon." + +"Oh!" said the man in a half-apologetic tone. Then in brisker +accents, "The very thing I want! I say, can you give me a bit of +it? The ring of my saddle girth has fetched loose. I can fasten +it with that." + +"I reckon," replied Lanty, with the same unconcern, moving nearer +the bulk, which now separated into two parts as the man dismounted. +"How much do you want?" + +"A foot or two will do." + +They were now in front of each other, although their faces were not +distinguishable to either. Lanty, who had been following the lines +with her hand, here came upon the end knotted around the last pole. +This she began to untie. + +"What a place to hang clothes," he said curiously. + +"Mighty dryin', tho'," returned Lanty laconically. + +"And your house? Is it near by?" he continued. + +"Just down the ridge--ye kin see from the edge. Got a knife?" She +had untied the knot. + +"No--yes--wait." He had hesitated a moment and then produced +something from his breast pocket, which he however kept in his +hand. As he did not offer it to her she simply held out a section +of the rope between her hands, which he divided with a single cut. +She saw only that the instrument was long and keen. Then she +lifted the flap of the saddle for him as he attempted to fasten the +loose ring with the rope, but the darkness made it impossible. +With an ejaculation, he fumbled in his pockets. "My last match!" +he said, striking it, as he crouched over it to protect it from the +wind. Lanty leaned over also, with her apron raised between it and +the blast. The flame for an instant lit up the ring, the man's +dark face, mustache, and white teeth set together as he tugged at +the girth, and Lanty's brown, velvet eyes and soft, round cheek +framed in the basket. Then it went out, but the ring was secured. + +"Thank you," said the man, with a short laugh, "but I thought you +were a humpbacked witch in the dark there." + +"And I couldn't make out whether you was a cow or a b'ar," returned +the young girl simply. + +Here, however, he quickly mounted his horse, but in the action +something slipped from his clothes, struck a stone, and bounded +away into the darkness. + +"My knife," he said hurriedly. "Please hand it to me." But +although the girl dropped on her knees and searched the ground +diligently, it could not be found. The man with a restrained +ejaculation again dismounted, and joined in the search. + +"Haven't you got another match?" suggested Lanty. + +"No--it was my last!" he said impatiently. + +"Just you hol' on here," she said suddenly, "and I'll run down to +the kitchen and fetch you a light. I won't be long." + +"No! no!" said the man quickly; "don't! I couldn't wait. I've +been here too long now. Look here. You come in daylight and find +it, and--just keep it for me, will you?" He laughed. "I'll come +for it. And now, if you'll only help to set me on that road again, +for it's so infernal black I can't see the mare's ears ahead of me, +I won't bother you any more. Thank you." + +Lanty had quietly moved to his horse's head and taken the bridle in +her hand, and at once seemed to be lost in the gloom. But in a few +moments he felt the muffled thud of his horse's hoof on the thick +dust of the highway, and its still hot, impalpable powder rising to +his nostrils. + +"Thank you," he said again, "I'm all right now," and in the pause +that followed it seemed to Lanty that he had extended a parting +hand to her in the darkness. She put up her own to meet it, but +missed his, which had blundered onto her shoulder. Before she +could grasp it, she felt him stooping over her, the light brush of +his soft mustache on her cheek, and then the starting forward of +his horse. But the retaliating box on the ear she had promptly +aimed at him spent itself in the black space which seemed suddenly +to have swallowed up the man, and even his light laugh. + +For an instant she stood still, and then, swinging the basket +indignantly from her shoulder, took up her suspended task. It was +no light one in the increasing wind, and the unfastened clothes- +line had precipitated a part of its burden to the ground through +the loosening of the rope. But on picking up the trailing garments +her hand struck an unfamiliar object. The stranger's lost knife! +She thrust it hastily into the bottom of the basket and completed +her work. As she began to descend with her burden she saw that the +light of the kitchen fire, seen through the windows, was augmented +by a candle. Her mother was evidently awaiting her. + +"Pretty time to be fetchin' in the wash," said Mrs. Foster +querulously. "But what can you expect when folks stand gossipin' +and philanderin' on the ridge instead o' tendin' to their work?" + +Now Lanty knew that she had NOT been "gossipin'" nor "philanderin'," +yet as the parting salute might have been open to that imputation, +and as she surmised that her mother might have overheard their +voices, she briefly said, to prevent further questioning, that she +had shown a stranger the road. But for her mother's unjust +accusation she would have been more communicative. As Mrs. Foster +went back grumblingly into the sitting-room Lanty resolved to keep +the knife at present a secret from her mother, and to that purpose +removed it from the basket. But in the light of the candle she saw +it for the first time plainly--and started. + +For it was really a dagger! jeweled-handled and richly wrought-- +such as Lanty had never looked upon before. The hilt was studded +with gems, and the blade, which had a cutting edge, was damascened +in blue and gold. Her soft eyes reflected the brilliant setting, +her lips parted breathlessly; then, as her mother's voice arose in +the other room, she thrust it back into its velvet sheath and +clapped it into her pocket. Its rare beauty had confirmed her +resolution of absolute secrecy. To have shown it now would have +made "no end of talk." And she was not sure but that her parents +would have demanded its custody! And it was given to HER by HIM to +keep. This settled the question of moral ethics. She took the +first opportunity to run up to her bedroom and hide it under the +mattress. + +Yet the thought of it filled the rest of her evening. When her +household duties were done she took up her novel again, partly from +force of habit and partly as an attitude in which she could think +of IT undisturbed. For what was fiction to her now? True, it +possessed a certain reminiscent value. A "dagger" had appeared in +several romances she had devoured, but she never had a clear idea +of one before. "The Count sprang back, and, drawing from his belt +a richly jeweled dagger, hissed between his teeth," or, more to the +purpose: "'Take this,' said Orlando, handing her the ruby-hilted +poignard which had gleamed upon his thigh, 'and should the caitiff +attempt thy unguarded innocence--'" + +"Did ye hear what your father was sayin'?" Lanty started. It was +her mother's voice in the doorway, and she had been vaguely +conscious of another voice pitched in the same querulous key, +which, indeed, was the dominant expression of the small ranchers of +that fertile neighborhood. Possibly a too complaisant and +unaggressive Nature had spoiled them. + +"Yes!--no!" said Lanty abstractedly, "what did he say?" + +"If you wasn't taken up with that fool book," said Mrs. Foster, +glancing at her daughter's slightly conscious color, "ye'd know! +He allowed ye'd better not leave yer filly in the far pasture +nights. That gang o' Mexican horse-thieves is out again, and +raided McKinnon's stock last night." + +This touched Lanty closely. The filly was her own property, and +she was breaking it for her own riding. But her distrust of her +parents' interference was greater than any fear of horse-stealers. +"She's mighty uneasy in the barn; and," she added, with a proud +consciousness of that beautiful yet carnal weapon upstairs, "I +reckon I ken protect her and myself agin any Mexican horse- +thieves." + +"My! but we're gettin' high and mighty," responded Mrs. Foster, +with deep irony. "Did you git all that outer your fool book?" + +"Mebbe," said Lanty curtly. + +Nevertheless, her thoughts that night were not entirely based on +written romance. She wondered if the stranger knew that she had +really tried to box his ears in the darkness, also if he had been +able to see her face. HIS she remembered, at least the flash of +his white teeth against his dark face and darker mustache, which +was quite as soft as her own hair. But if he thought "for a +minnit" that she was "goin' to allow an entire stranger to kiss +her--he was mighty mistaken." She should let him know it "pretty +quick"! She should hand him back the dagger "quite careless like," +and never let on that she'd thought anything of it. Perhaps that +was the reason why, before she went to bed, she took a good look at +it, and after taking off her straight, beltless, calico gown she +even tried the effect of it, thrust in the stiff waistband of her +petticoat, with the jeweled hilt displayed, and thought it looked +charming--as indeed it did. And then, having said her prayers like +a good girl, and supplicated that she should be less "tetchy" with +her parents, she went to sleep and dreamed that she had gone out to +take in the wash again, but that the clothes had all changed to the +queerest lot of folks, who were all fighting and struggling with +each other until she, Lanty, drawing her dagger, rushed up single- +handed among them, crying, "Disperse, ye craven curs,--disperse, I +say." And they dispersed. + +Yet even Lanty was obliged to admit the next morning that all this +was somewhat incongruous with the baking of "corn dodgers," the +frying of fish, the making of beds, and her other household duties, +and dismissed the stranger from her mind until he should "happen +along." In her freer and more acceptable outdoor duties she even +tolerated the advances of neighboring swains who made a point of +passing by "Foster's Ranch," and who were quite aware that Atalanta +Foster, alias "Lanty," was one of the prettiest girls in the +country. But Lanty's toleration consisted in that singular +performance known to herself as "giving them as good as they sent," +being a lazy traversing, qualified with scorn, of all that they +advanced. How long they would have put up with this from a plain +girl I do not know, but Lanty's short upper lip seemed framed for +indolent and fascinating scorn, and her dreamy eyes usually looked +beyond the questioner, or blunted his bolder glances in their +velvety surfaces. The libretto of these scenes was not exhaustive, +e.g.:-- + +The Swain (with bold, bad gayety). "Saw that shy schoolmaster +hangin' round your ridge yesterday! Orter know by this time that +shyness with a gal don't pay." + +Lanty (decisively). "Mebbe he allows it don't get left as often as +impudence." + +The Swain (ignoring the reply and his previous attitude and +becoming more direct). "I was calkilatin' to say that with these +yer hoss-thieves about, yer filly ain't safe in the pasture. I +took a turn round there two or three times last evening to see if +she was all right." + +Lanty (with a flattering show of interest). "No! DID ye, now? I +was jest wonderin"'-- + +The Swain (eagerly). "I did--quite late, too! Why, that's +nothin', Miss Atalanty, to what I'd do for you." + +Lanty (musing, with far off-eyes). "Then that's why she was so +awful skeerd and frightened! Just jumpin' outer her skin with +horror. I reckoned it was a b'ar or panther or a spook! You ought +to have waited till she got accustomed to your looks." + +Nevertheless, despite this elegant raillery, Lanty was enough +concerned in the safety of her horse to visit it the next day with +a view of bringing it nearer home. She had just stepped into the +alder fringe of a dry "run" when she came suddenly upon the figure +of a horseman in the "run," who had been hidden by the alders from +the plain beyond and who seemed to be engaged in examining the hoof +marks in the dust of the old ford. Something about his figure +struck her recollection, and as he looked up quickly she saw it was +the owner of the dagger. But he appeared to be lighter of hair and +complexion, and was dressed differently, and more like a vaquero. +Yet there was the same flash of his teeth as he recognized her, and +she knew it was the same man. + +Alas for her preparation! Without the knife she could not make +that haughty return of it which she had contemplated. And more +than that, she was conscious she was blushing! Nevertheless she +managed to level her pretty brown eyebrows at him, and said sharply +that if he followed her to her home she would return his property +at once. + +"But I'm in no hurry for it," he said with a laugh,--the same light +laugh and pleasant voice she remembered,--"and I'd rather not come +to the house just now. The knife is in good hands, I know, and +I'll call for it when I want it! And until then--if it's all the +same to you--keep it to yourself,--keep it dark, as dark as the +night I lost it!" + +"I don't go about blabbing my affairs," said Lanty indignantly, +"and if it hadn't BEEN dark that night you'd have had your ears +boxed--you know why!" + +The stranger laughed again, waved his hand to Lanty, and galloped +away. + +Lanty was a little disappointed. The daylight had taken away some +of her illusions. He was certainly very good-looking, but not +quite as picturesque, mysterious, and thrilling as in the dark! +And it was very queer--he certainly did look darker that night! +Who was he? And why was he lingering near her? He was different +from her neighbors--her admirers. He might be one of those +locaters, from the big towns, who prospect the lands, with a view +of settling government warrants on them,--they were always so +secret until they had found what they wanted. She did not dare to +seek information of her friends, for the same reason that she had +concealed his existence from her mother,--it would provoke awkward +questions; and it was evident that he was trusting to her secrecy, +too. The thought thrilled her with a new pride, and was some +compensation for the loss of her more intangible romance. It would +be mighty fine, when he did call openly for his beautiful knife and +declared himself, to have them all know that SHE knew about it all +along. + +When she reached home, to guard against another such surprise she +determined to keep the weapon with her, and, distrusting her +pocket, confided it to the cheap little country-made corset which +only for the last year had confined her budding figure, and which +now, perhaps, heaved with an additional pride. She was quite +abstracted during the rest of the day, and paid but little +attention to the gossip of the farm lads, who were full of a daring +raid, two nights before, by the Mexican gang on the large stock +farm of a neighbor. The Vigilant Committee had been baffled; it +was even alleged that some of the smaller ranchmen and herders were +in league with the gang. It was also believed to be a widespread +conspiracy; to have a political complexion in its combination of an +alien race with Southwestern filibusters. The legal authorities +had been reinforced by special detectives from San Francisco. +Lanty seldom troubled herself with these matters; she knew the +exaggeration, she suspected the ignorance of her rural neighbors. +She roughly referred it, in her own vocabulary, to "jaw," a +peculiarly masculine quality. But later in the evening, when the +domestic circle in the sitting-room had been augmented by a +neighbor, and Lanty had taken refuge behind her novel as an excuse +for silence, Zob Hopper, the enamored swain of the previous +evening, burst in with more astounding news. A posse of the +sheriff had just passed along the ridge; they had "corraled" part +of the gang, and rescued some of the stock. The leader of the gang +had escaped, but his capture was inevitable, as the roads were +stopped. "All the same, I'm glad to see ye took my advice, Miss +Atalanty, and brought in your filly," he concluded, with an +insinuating glance at the young girl. + +But "Miss Atalanty," curling a quarter of an inch of scarlet lip +above the edge of her novel, here "allowed" that if his advice or +the filly had to be "took," she didn't know which was worse. + +"I wonder ye kin talk to sech peartness, Mr. Hopper," said Mrs. +Foster severely; "she ain't got eyes nor senses for anythin' but +that book." + +"Talkin' o' what's to be 'took,'" put in the diplomatic neighbor, +"you bet it ain't that Mexican leader! No, sir! he's been +'stopped' before this--and then got clean away all the same! One +o' them detectives got him once and disarmed him--but he managed to +give them the slip, after all. Why, he's that full o' shifts and +disguises thar ain't no spottin' him. He walked right under the +constable's nose oncet, and took a drink with the sheriff that was +arter him--and the blamed fool never knew it. He kin change even +the color of his hair quick as winkin'." + +"Is he a real Mexican,--a regular Greaser?" asked the paternal +Foster. "Cos I never heard that they wuz smart." + +"No! They say he comes o' old Spanish stock, a bad egg they threw +outer the nest, I reckon," put in Hopper eagerly, seeing a strange +animated interest dilating Lanty's eyes, and hoping to share in it; +"but he's reg'lar high-toned, you bet! Why, I knew a man who seed +him in his own camp--prinked out in a velvet jacket and silk sash, +with gold chains and buttons down his wide pants and a dagger stuck +in his sash, with a handle just blazin' with jew'ls. Yes! Miss +Atalanty, they say that one stone at the top--a green stone, what +they call an 'em'ral'--was worth the price o' a 'Frisco house-lot. +True ez you live! Eh--what's up now?" + +Lanty's book had fallen on the floor as she was rising to her feet +with a white face, still more strange and distorted in an affected +yawn behind her little hand. "Yer makin' me that sick and nervous +with yer fool yarns," she said hysterically, "that I'm goin' to get +a little fresh air. It's just stifling here with lies and +terbacker!" With another high laugh, she brushed past him into the +kitchen, opened the door, and then paused, and, turning, ran +rapidly up to her bedroom. Here she locked herself in, tore open +the bosom of her dress, plucked out the dagger, threw it on the +bed, where the green stone gleamed for an instant in the +candlelight, and then dropped on her knees beside the bed with her +whirling head buried in her cold red hands. + +It had all come to her in a flash, like a blaze of lightning,--the +black, haunting figure on the ridge, the broken saddle girth, the +abandonment of the dagger in the exigencies of flight and +concealment; the second meeting, the skulking in the dry, alder- +hidden "run," the changed dress, the lighter-colored hair, but +always the same voice and laugh--the leader, the fugitive, the +Mexican horse-thief! And she, the Godforsaken fool, the chuckle- +headed nigger baby, with not half the sense of her own filly or +that sop-headed Hopper--had never seen it! She--SHE who would be +the laughing-stock of them all--she had thought him a "locater," a +"towny" from 'Frisco! And she had consented to keep his knife +until he would call for it,--yes, call for it, with fire and flame +perhaps, the trampling of hoofs, pistol shots--and--yet-- + +Yet!--he had TRUSTED her. Yes! trusted her when he knew a word +from her lips would have brought the whole district down on him! +when the mere exposure of that dagger would have identified and +damned him! Trusted her a second time, when she was within cry of +her house! When he might have taken her filly without her knowing +it? And now she remembered vaguely that the neighbors had said how +strange it was that her father's stock had not suffered as theirs +had. HE had protected them--he who was now a fugitive--and their +men pursuing him! She rose suddenly with a single stamp of her +narrow foot, and as suddenly became cool and sane. And then, quite +her old self again, she lazily picked up the dagger and restored it +to its place in her bosom. That done, with her color back and her +eyes a little brighter, she deliberately went downstairs again, +stuck her little brown head into the sitting-room, said cheerfully, +"Still yawpin', you folks," and quietly passed out into the darkness. + +She ran swiftly up to the ridge, impelled by the blind memory of +having met him there at night and the one vague thought to give him +warning. But it was dark and empty, with no sound but the rushing +wind. And then an idea seized her. If he were haunting the +vicinity still, he might see the fluttering of the clothes upon the +line and believe she was there. She stooped quickly, and in the +merciful and exonerating darkness stripped off her only white +petticoat and pinned it on the line. It flapped, fluttered, and +streamed in the mountain wind. She lingered and listened. But +there came a sound she had not counted on,--the clattering hoofs of +not ONE, but many, horses on the lower road! She ran back to the +house to find its inmates already hastening towards the road for +news. She took that chance to slip in quietly, go to her room, +whose window commanded a view of the ridge, and crouching low +behind it she listened. She could hear the sound of voices, and +the dull trampling of heavy boots on the dusty path towards the +barnyard on the other side of the house--a pause, and then the +return of the trampling boots, and the final clattering of hoofs on +the road again. Then there was a tap on her door and her mother's +querulous voice. + +"Oh! yer there, are ye? Well--it's the best place fer a girl--with +all these man's doin's goin' on! They've got that Mexican horse- +thief and have tied him up in your filly's stall in the barn--till +the 'Frisco deputy gets back from rounding up the others. So ye +jest stay where ye are till they've come and gone, and we're shut +o' all that cattle. Are ye mindin'?" + +"All right, maw; 'taint no call o' mine, anyhow," returned Lanty, +through the half-open door. + +At another time her mother might have been startled at her passive +obedience. Still more would she have been startled had she seen +her daughter's face now, behind the closed door--with her little +mouth set over her clenched teeth. And yet it was her own child, +and Lanty was her mother's real daughter; the same pioneer blood +filled their veins, the blood that had never nourished cravens or +degenerates, but had given itself to sprinkle and fertilize desert +solitudes where man might follow. Small wonder, then, that this +frontier-born Lanty, whose first infant cry had been answered by +the yelp of wolf and scream of panther; whose father's rifle had +been leveled across her cradle to cover the stealthy Indian who +prowled outside, small wonder that she should feel herself equal to +these "man's doin's," and prompt to take a part. For even in the +first shock of the news of the capture she recalled the fact that +the barn was old and rotten, that only that day the filly had +kicked a board loose from behind her stall, which she, Lanty, had +lightly returned to avoid "making a fuss." If his captors had not +noticed it, or trusted only to their guards, she might make the +opening wide enough to free him! + +Two hours later the guard nearest the now sleeping house, a farm +hand of the Fosters', saw his employer's daughter slip out and +cautiously approach him. A devoted slave of Lanty's, and familiar +with her impulses, he guessed her curiosity, and was not averse to +satisfy it and the sense of his own importance. To her whispers of +affected, half-terrified interest, he responded in whispers that +the captive was really in the filly's stall, securely bound by his +wrists behind his back, and his feet "hobbled" to a post. That +Lanty couldn't see him, for it was dark inside, and he was sitting +with his back to the wall, as he couldn't sleep comf'ble lyin' +down. Lanty's eyes glowed, but her face was turned aside. + +"And ye ain't reckonin' his friends will come and rescue him?" said +Lanty, gazing with affected fearfulness in the darkness. + +"Not much! There's two other guards down in the corral, and I'd +fire my gun and bring 'em up." + +But Lanty was gazing open-mouthed towards the ridge. "What's that +wavin' on the ridge?" she said in awe-stricken tones. + +She was pointing to the petticoat,--a vague, distant, moving object +against the horizon. + +"Why, that's some o' the wash on the line, ain't it?" + +"Wash--TWO DAYS IN THE WEEK!" said Lanty sharply. "Wot's gone of +you?" + +"Thet's so," muttered the man, "and it wan't there at sundown, I'll +swear! P'r'aps I'd better call the guard," and he raised his rifle. + +"Don't," said Lanty, catching his arm. "Suppose it's nothin', +they'll laugh at ye. Creep up softly and see; ye ain't afraid, are +ye? If ye are, give me yer gun, and I'LL go." + +This settled the question, as Lanty expected. The man cocked his +piece, and bending low began cautiously to mount the acclivity. +Lanty waited until his figure began to fade, and then ran like fire +to the barn. + +She had arranged every detail of her plan beforehand. Crouching +beside the wall of the stall she hissed through a crack in +thrilling whispers, "Don't move. Don't speak for your life's sake. +Wait till I hand you back your knife, then do the best you can." +Then slipping aside the loosened board she saw dimly the black +outline of curling hair, back, shoulders, and tied wrists of the +captive. Drawing the knife from her pocket, with two strokes of +its keen cutting edge she severed the cords, threw the knife into +the opening, and darted away. Yet in that moment she knew that the +man was instinctively turning towards her. But it was one thing to +free a horse-thief, and another to stop and "philander" with him. + +She ran halfway up the ridge, and met the farm hand returning. It +was only a bit of washing after all, and he was glad he hadn't +fired his gun. On the other hand, Lanty confessed she had got "so +skeert" being alone, that she came to seek him. She had the +shivers; wasn't her hand cold? It was, but thrilling even in its +coldness to the bashfully admiring man. And she was that weak and +dizzy, he must let her lean on his arm going down; and they must go +SLOW. She was sure he was cold, too, and if he would wait at the +back door she would give him a drink of whiskey. Thus Lanty, with +her brain afire, her eyes and ears straining into the darkness, and +the vague outline of the barn beyond. Another moment was +protracted over the drink of whiskey, and then Lanty, with a faint +archness, made him promise not to tell her mother of her escapade, +and she promised on her part not to say anything about his +"stalking a petticoat on the clothesline," and then shyly closed +the door and regained her room. HE must have got away by this +time, or have been discovered; she believed they would not open the +barn door until the return of the posse. + +She was right. It was near daybreak when they returned, and, again +crouching low beside her window, she heard, with a fierce joy, the +sudden outcry, the oaths, the wrangling voices, the summoning of +her father to the front door, and then the tumultuous sweeping away +again of the whole posse, and a blessed silence falling over the +rancho. And then Lanty went quietly to bed, and slept like a +three-year child! + +Perhaps that was the reason why she was able at breakfast to listen +with lazy and even rosy indifference to the startling events of the +night; to the sneers of the farm hands at the posse who had +overlooked the knife when they searched their prisoner, as well as +the stupidity of the corral guard who had never heard him make a +hole "the size of a house" in the barn side! Once she glanced +demurely at Silas Briggs--the farm hand and the poor fellow felt +consoled in his shame at the remembrance of their confidences. + +But Lanty's tranquillity was not destined to last long. There was +again the irruption of exciting news from the highroad; the Mexican +leader had been recaptured, and was now safely lodged in Brownsville +jail! Those who were previously loud in their praises of the +successful horse-thief who had baffled the vigilance of his pursuers +were now equally keen in their admiration of the new San Francisco +deputy who, in turn, had outwitted the whole gang. It was HE who +was fertile in expedients; HE who had studied the whole country, and +even risked his life among the gang, and HE who had again closed the +meshes of the net around the escaped outlaw. He was already +returning by way of the rancho, and might stop there a moment,--so +that they could all see the hero. Such was the power of success on +the country-side! Outwardly indifferent, inwardly bitter, Lanty +turned away. She should not grace his triumph, if she kept in her +room all day! And when there was a clatter of hoofs on the road +again, Lanty slipped upstairs. + +But in a few moments she was summoned. Captain Lance Wetherby, +Assistant Chief of Police of San Francisco, Deputy Sheriff and ex- +U. S. scout, had requested to see Miss Foster a few moments alone. +Lanty knew what it meant,--her secret had been discovered; but she +was not the girl to shirk the responsibility! She lifted her +little brown head proudly, and with the same resolute step with +which she had left the house the night before, descended the stairs +and entered the sitting-room. At first she saw nothing. Then a +remembered voice struck her ear; she started, looked up, and +gasping, fell back against the door. It was the stranger who had +given her the dagger, the stranger she had met in the run!--the +horse-thief himself! No! no! she saw it all now--she had cut loose +the wrong man! + +He looked at her with a smile of sadness--as he drew from his +breast-pocket that dreadful dagger, the very sight of which Lanty +now loathed! "This is the SECOND time, Miss Foster," he said +gently, "that I have taken this knife from Murietta, the Mexican +bandit: once when I disarmed him three weeks ago, and he escaped, +and last night, when he had again escaped and I recaptured him. +After I lost it that night I understood from you that you had found +it and were keeping it for me." He paused a moment and went on: "I +don't ask you what happened last night. I don't condemn you for +it; I can believe what a girl of your courage and sympathy might +rightly do if her pity were excited; I only ask--why did you give +HIM back that knife I trusted you with?" + +"Why? Why did I?" burst out Lanty in a daring gush of truth, +scorn, and temper. "BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE THAT HORSE-THIEF. +There!" + +He drew back astonished, and then suddenly came that laugh that +Lanty remembered and now hailed with joy. "I believe you, by +Jove!" he gasped. "That first night I wore the disguise in which I +have tracked him and mingled with his gang. Yes! I see it all now-- +and more. I see that to YOU I owe his recapture!" + +"To me!" echoed the bewildered girl; "how?" + +"Why, instead of making for his cave he lingered here in the +confines of the ranch! He thought you were in love with him, +because you freed him and gave him his knife, and stayed to see +you!" + +But Lanty had her apron to her eyes, whose first tears were filling +their velvet depths. And her voice was broken as she said,-- + +"Then he--cared--a--good deal more for me--than some people!" + +But there is every reason to believe that Lanty was wrong! At +least later events that are part of the history of Foster's Rancho +and the Foster family pointed distinctly to the contrary. + + + +AN ALI BABA OF THE SIERRAS + + +Johnny Starleigh found himself again late for school. It was +always happening. It seemed to be inevitable with the process of +going to school at all. And it was no fault "o' his." Something +was always occurring,--some eccentricity of Nature or circumstance +was invariably starting up in his daily path to the schoolroom. He +may not have been "thinkin' of squirrels," and yet the rarest and +most evasive of that species were always crossing his trail; he may +not have been "huntin' honey," and yet a wild bees' nest in the +hollow of an oak absolutely obtruded itself before him; he wasn't +"bird-catchin'," and yet there was a yellow-hammer always within +stone's throw. He had heard how grown men hunters always saw the +most wonderful animals when they "hadn't got a gun with 'em," and +it seemed to be his lot to meet them in his restricted possibilities +on the way to school. If Nature was thus capricious with his +elders, why should folk think it strange if she was as mischievous +with a small boy? + +On this particular morning Johnny had been beguiled by the +unmistakable footprints--so like his own!--of a bear's cub. What +chances he had of ever coming up with them, or what he would have +done if he had, he did not know. He only knew that at the end of +an hour and a half he found himself two miles from the schoolhouse, +and, from the position of the sun, at least an hour too late for +school. He knew that nobody would believe him. The punishment for +complete truancy was little worse than for being late. He resolved +to accept it, and by way of irrevocability at once burnt his ships +behind him--in devouring part of his dinner. + +Thus fortified in his outlawry, he began to look about him. He was +on a thickly wooded terrace with a blank wall of "outcrop" on one +side nearly as high as the pines which pressed close against it. +He had never seen it before; it was two or three miles from the +highroad and seemed to be a virgin wilderness. But on close +examination he could see, with the eye of a boy bred in a mining +district, that the wall of outcrop had not escaped the attention of +the mining prospector. There were marks of his pick in some +attractive quartz seams of the wall, and farther on, a more +ambitious attempt, evidently by a party of miners, to begin a +tunnel, shown in an abandoned excavation and the heap of debris +before it. It had evidently been abandoned for some time, as ferns +already forced their green fronds through the stones and gravel, +and the yerba buena vine was beginning to mat the surface of the +heap. But the boy's fancy was quickly taken by the traces of a +singular accident, and one which had perhaps arrested the progress +of the excavators. The roots of a large pine-tree growing close to +the wall had been evidently loosened by the excavators, and the +tree had fallen, with one of its largest roots still in the opening +the miners had made, and apparently blocking the entrance. The +large tree lay, as it fell--midway across another but much smaller +outcrop of rock which stood sharply about fifteen feet above the +level of the terrace--with its gaunt, dead limbs in the air at a +low angle. To Johnny's boyish fancy it seemed so easily balanced +on the rock that but for its imprisoned root it would have made a +capital see-saw. This he felt must be looked to hereafter. But +here his attention was arrested by something more alarming. His +quick ear, attuned like an animal's to all woodland sounds, +detected the crackling of underwood in the distance. His equally +sharp eye saw the figures of two men approaching. But as he +recognized the features of one of them he drew back with a beating +heart, a hushed breath, and hurriedly hid himself in the shadow. +For he had seen that figure once before--flying before the sheriff +and an armed posse--and had never forgotten it! It was the figure +of Spanish Pete, a notorious desperado and sluice robber! + +Finding he had been unobserved, the boy took courage, and his small +faculties became actively alive. The two men came on together +cautiously, and at a little distance the second man, whom Johnny +did not know, parted from his companion and began to loiter up and +down, looking around as if acting as a sentinel for the desperado, +who advanced directly to the fallen tree. Suddenly the sentinel +uttered an exclamation, and Spanish Pete paused. The sentinel was +examining the ground near the heap of debris. + +"What's up?" growled the desperado. + +"Foot tracks! Weren't here before. And fresh ones, too." + +Johnny's heart sank. It was where he had just passed. + +Spanish Pete hurriedly joined his companion. + +"Foot tracks be ----!" he said scornfully. "What fool would be +crawlin' round here barefooted? It's a young b'ar!" + +Johnny knew the footprints were his own. Yet he recognized the +truth of the resemblance; it was uncomplimentary, but he felt +relieved. The desperado came forward, and to the boy's surprise +began to climb the small ridge of outcrop until he reached the +fallen tree. Johnny saw that he was carrying a heavy stone. +"What's the blamed fool goin' to do?" he said to himself; the man's +evident ignorance regarding footprints had lessened the boy's awe +of him. But the stranger's next essay took Johnny's breath away. +Standing on the fallen tree trunk at its axis on the outcrop, he +began to rock it gently. To Johnny's surprise it began to move. +The upper end descended slowly, lifting the root in the excavation +at the lower end, and with it a mass of rock, and revealing a +cavern behind large enough to admit a man. Johnny gasped. The +desperado coolly deposited the heavy stone on the tree beyond its +axis on the rock, so that it would keep the tree in position, +leaped from the tree to the rock, and quickly descended, at which +he was joined by the other man, who was carrying two heavy chamois- +leather bags. They both proceeded to the opening thus miraculously +disclosed, and disappeared in it. + +Johnny sat breathless, wondering, expectant, but not daring to +move. The men might come out at any moment; he had seen enough to +know that their enterprise as well as their cave was a secret, and +that the desperado would subject any witness to it, however +innocent or unwilling, to horrible penalties. The time crept +slowly by,--he heard every rap of a woodpecker in a distant tree; a +blue jay dipped and lighted on a branch within his reach, but he +dared not extend his hand; his legs were infested by ants; he even +fancied he heard the dry, hollow rattle of a rattlesnake not a yard +from him. And then the entrance of the cave was darkened, and the +two men reappeared. Johnny stared. He would have rubbed his eyes +if he had dared. They were not the same men! Did the cave contain +others who had been all the while shut up in its dark recesses? +Was there a band? Would they all swarm out upon him? Should he +run for his life? + +But the illusion was only momentary. A longer look at them +convinced him that they were the same men in new clothes and +disguised, and as one remounted the outcrop Johnny's keen eyes +recognized him as Spanish Pete. He merely kicked away the stone; +the root again descended gently over the opening, and the tree +recovered its former angle. The two hurried away, but Johnny +noticed that they were empty-handed. The bags had been left +behind. + +The boy waited patiently, listening with his ear to the ground, +like an Indian, for the last rustle of fern and crackle of +underbrush, and then emerged, stiff and cramped from his +concealment. But he no longer thought of flight; curiosity and +ambition burned in his small veins. He quickly climbed up the +outcrop, picked up the fallen stone, and in spite of its weight +lifted it to the prostrate tree. Here he paused, and from his +coign of vantage looked and listened. The solitude was profound. +Then mounting the tree and standing over its axis he tried to rock +it as the others had. Alas! Johnny's heart was stout, his courage +unlimited, his perception all-embracing, his ambition boundless; +but his actual avoirdupois was only that of a boy of ten. The tree +did not move. But Johnny had played see-saw before, and quietly +moved towards its highest part. It slowly descended under the +changed centre of gravity, and the root arose, disclosing the +opening as before. Yet here the little hero paused. He waited +with his eyes fixed on the opening, ready to fly on the sallying +out of any one who had remained concealed. He then placed the +stone where he had stood, leaped down, and ran to the opening. + +The change from the dazzling sunlight to the darkness confused him +at first, and he could see nothing. On entering he stumbled over +something which proved to be a bottle in which a candle was fitted, +and a box of matches evidently used by the two men. Lighting the +candle he could now discern that the cavern was only a few yards +long, the beginning of a tunnel which the accident to the tree had +stopped. In one corner lay the clothes that the men had left, and +which for a moment seemed all that the cavern contained, but on +removing them Johnny saw that they were thrown over a rifle, a +revolver, and the two chamois-leather bags that the men had brought +there. They were so heavy that the boy could scarcely lift them. +His face flushed; his hands trembled with excitement. To a boy +whose truant wanderings had given him a fair knowledge of mining, +he knew that weight could have but one meaning! Gold! He +hurriedly untied the nearest bag. But it was not the gold of the +locality, of the tunnel, of the "bed rock"! It was "flake gold," +the gold of the river! It had been taken from the miners' sluices +in the distant streams. The bags before him were the spoils of the +sluice robber,--spoils that could not be sold or even shown in the +district without danger, spoils kept until they could be taken to +Marysville or Sacramento for disposal. All this might have +occurred to the mind of any boy of the locality who had heard the +common gossip of his elders, but to Johnny's fancy an idea was +kindled peculiarly his own! Here was a cavern like that of the +"Forty Thieves" in the story book, and he was the "Ali Baba" who +knew its secret! He was not obliged to say "Open Sesame," but he +could say it if he liked, if he was showing it off to anybody! + +Yet alas he also knew it was a secret he must keep to himself. He +had nobody to trust it to. His father was a charcoal-burner of +small means; a widower with two children, Johnny and his elder +brother Sam. The latter, a flagrant incorrigible of twenty-two, +with a tendency to dissipation and low company, had lately +abandoned his father's roof, only to reappear at intervals of +hilarious or maudlin intoxication. He had always been held up to +Johnny as a warning, or with the gloomy prognosis that he, Johnny, +was already following in his tortuous footsteps. Even if he were +here he was not to be thought of as a confidant. Still less could +he trust his father, who would be sure to bungle the secret with +sheriffs and constables, and end by bringing down the vengeance of +the gang upon the family. As for himself, he could not dispose of +the gold if he were to take it. The exhibition of a single flake +of it to the adult public would arouse suspicion, and as it was +Johnny's hard fate to be always doubted, he might be connected with +the gang. As a truant he knew he had no moral standing, but he +also had the superstition--quite characteristic of childhood--that +being in possession of a secret he was a participant in its +criminality--and bound, as it were, by terrible oaths! And then a +new idea seized him. He carefully put back everything as he had +found it, extinguished the candle, left the cave, remounted the +tree, and closed the opening again as he had seen the others do it, +with the addition of murmuring "Shut Sesame" to himself, and then +ran away as fast as his short legs could carry him. + +Well clear of the dangerous vicinity, he proceeded more leisurely +for about a mile, until he came to a low whitewashed fence, +inclosing a small cultivated patch and a neat farmhouse beyond. +Here he paused, and, cowering behind the fence, with extraordinary +facial contortions produced a cry not unlike the scream of a blue +jay. Repeating it at intervals, he was presently relieved by +observing the approach of a nankeen sunbonnet within the inclosure +above the line of fence. Stopping before him, the sun-bonnet +revealed a rosy little face, more than usually plump on one side, +and a neck enormously wrapped in a scarf. It was "Meely" (Amelia) +Stryker, a schoolmate, detained at home by "mumps," as Johnny was +previously aware. For, with the famous indiscretion of some other +great heroes, he was about to intrust his secret and his destiny to +one of the weaker sex. And what were the minor possibilities of +contagion to this? + +"Playin' hookey ag'in?" said the young lady, with a cordial and +even expansive smile, exclusively confined to one side of her face. + +"Um! So'd you be ef you'd bin whar I hev," he said with harrowing +mystery. + +"No!--say!" said Meely eagerly. + +At which Johnny, clutching at the top of the fence, with hurried +breath told his story. But not all. With the instinct of a true +artist he withheld the manner in which the opening of the cave was +revealed, said nothing about the tree, and, I grieve to say, added +the words "Open Sesame" as the important factor to the operation. +Neither did he mention the name of Spanish Pete. For all of which +he was afterwards duly grateful. + +"Meet me at the burnt pine down the crossroads at four o'clock," he +said in conclusion, "and I'll show ye." + +"Why not now?" said Meely impatiently. + +"Couldn't. Much as my life is worth! Must keep watching out! You +come at four." + +And with an assuring nod he released the fence and trotted off. He +returned cautiously in the direction of the cave; he was by no +means sure that the robbers might not return that day, and his +mysterious rendezvous with Meely veiled a certain prudence. And it +was well! For as he stealthily crept around the face of the +outcrop, hidden in the ferns, he saw from the altered angle of the +tree that the cavern was opened. He remained motionless, with +bated breath. Then he heard the sound of subdued voices from the +cavern, and a figure emerged from the opening. Johnny grasped the +ferns rigidly to check the dreadful cry that rose to his lips at +its sight. For that figure was his own brother! + +There was no mistaking that weak, wicked face, even then flushed +with liquor! Johnny had seen it too often thus. But never before +as a thief's face! He gave a little gasp, and fell back upon that +strange reserve of apathy and reticence in which children are apt +to hide their emotions from us at such a moment. He watched +impassively the two other men who followed his brother out to give +him a small bag and some instructions, and then returned within +their cave, while his brother walked quickly away. He watched him +disappear; he did not move, for even if he had followed him he +could not bear to face him in his shame. And then out of his +sullen despair came a boyish idea of revenge. It was those two men +who had made his brother a thief! + +He was very near the tree. He crept stealthily on his hands and +knees through the bracken, and as stealthily climbed the wedge of +outcrop, and then leaped like a wild cat on the tree. With +incredible activity he lifted the balancing stone, and as the tree +began to move, in a flash of perception transferred it to the other +side of its axis, and felt the roots and debris, under that +additional weight, descend quickly with something like a crash over +the opening. Then he took to his heels. He ran so swiftly that +all unknowingly he overtook a figure, who, turning, glanced at him, +and then disappeared in the wood. It was his second and last view +of his brother, as he never saw him again! + +But now, strange to say, the crucial and most despairing moment of +his day's experience had come. He had to face Meely Stryker under +the burnt pine, and the promise he could not keep, and to tell her +that he had lied to her. It was the only way to save his brother +now! His small wits, and alas! his smaller methods, were equal to +the despairing task. As soon as he saw her waiting under the tree +he fell to capering and dancing with an extravagance in which +hysteria had no small part. "Sold! sold! sold again, and got the +money!" he laughed shrilly. + +The girl looked at him with astonishment, which changed gradually +to scorn, and then to anger. Johnny's heart sank, but he redoubled +his antics. + +"Who's sold?" she said disdainfully. + +"You be. You swallered all that stuff about Ali Baba! You wanted +to be Morgy Anna! Ho! ho! And I've made you play hookey--from +home!" + +"You hateful, horrid, little liar!" + +Johnny accepted his punishment meekly--in his heart gratefully. "I +reckoned you'd laugh and not get mad," he said submissively. The +girl turned, with tears of rage and vexation in her eyes, and +walked away. Johnny followed at a humble distance. Perhaps there +was something instinctively touching in the boy's remorse, for they +made it up before they reached her fence. + +Nevertheless Johnny went home miserable. Luckily for him, his +father was absent at a Vigilance Committee called to take +cognizance of the late sluice robberies, and although this +temporarily concealed his offense of truancy, the news of the +vigilance meeting determined him to keep his lips sealed. He lay +all night wondering how long it would take the robbers to dig +themselves out of the cave, and whether they suspected their +imprisonment was the work of an enemy or only an accident. For +several days he avoided the locality, and even feared the vengeful +appearance of Spanish Pete some night at his father's house. It +was not until the end of a fortnight that he had the courage to +revisit the spot. The tree was in its normal position, but +immovable, and a great quantity of fresh debris at the mouth of the +cave convinced him that the robbers, after escaping, had abandoned +it as unsafe. His brother did not return, and either the activity +of the Vigilance Committee or the lack of a new place of rendezvous +seemed to have dispersed the robbers from the locality, for they +were not heard of again. + +The next ten years brought an improvement to Mr. Starleigh's +fortunes. Johnny Starleigh, then a student at San Jose, one +morning found a newspaper clipping in a letter from Miss Amelia +Stryker. It read as follows: "The excavators in the new tunnel in +Heavystone Ridge lately discovered the skeletons of two unknown +men, who had evidently been crushed and entombed some years +previously, by the falling of a large tree over the mouth of their +temporary refuge. From some river gold found with them, they were +supposed to be part of the gang of sluice robbers who infested the +locality some years ago, and were hiding from the Vigilants." + +For a few days thereafter Johnny Starleigh was thoughtful and +reserved, but he did not refer to the paragraph in answering the +letter. He decided to keep it for later confidences, when Miss +Stryker should become Mrs. Starleigh. + + + +MISS PEGGY'S PROTEGES + + +The string of Peggy's sunbonnet had become untied--so had her right +shoe. These were not unusual accidents to a country girl of ten, +but as both of her hands were full she felt obliged to put down +what she was carrying. This was further complicated by the nature +of her burden--a half-fledged shrike and a baby gopher--picked up +in her walk. It was impossible to wrap them both in her apron +without serious peril to one or the other; she could not put either +down without the chance of its escaping. "It's like that dreadful +riddle of the ferryman who had to take the wolf and the sheep in +his boat," said Peggy to herself, "though I don't believe anybody +was ever so silly as to want to take a wolf across the river." +But, looking up, she beheld the approach of Sam Bedell, a six-foot +tunnelman of the "Blue Cement Lead," and, hailing him, begged him +to hold one of her captives. The giant, loathing the little mouse- +like ball of fur, chose the shrike. "Hold him by the feet, for he +bites AWFUL," said Peggy, as the bird regarded Sam with the +diabolically intense frown of his species. Then, dropping the +gopher unconcernedly in her pocket, she proceeded to rearrange her +toilet. The tunnelman waited patiently until Peggy had secured the +nankeen sunbonnet around her fresh but freckled cheeks, and, with a +reckless display of yellow flannel petticoat and stockings like +peppermint sticks, had double-knotted her shoestrings viciously +when he ventured to speak. + +"Same old game, Peggy? Thought you'd got rather discouraged with +your 'happy family,' arter that new owl o' yours had gathered 'em +in." + +Peggy's cheek flushed slightly at this ungracious allusion to a +former collection of hers, which had totally disappeared one +evening after the introduction of a new member in the shape of a +singularly venerable and peaceful-looking horned owl. + +"I could have tamed HIM, too," said Peggy indignantly, "if Ned +Myers, who gave him to me, hadn't been training him to ketch +things, and never let on anything about it to me. He was a reg'lar +game owl!" + +"And wot are ye goin' to do with the Colonel here?" said Sam, +indicating under that gallant title the infant shrike, who, with +his claws deeply imbedded in Sam's finger, was squatting like a +malignant hunchback, and resisting his transfer to Peggy. "Won't +HE make it rather lively for the others? He looks pow'ful +discontented for one so young." + +"That's his nater," said Peggy promptly. "Jess wait till I tame +him. Ef he'd been left along o' his folks, he'd grow up like 'em. +He's a 'butcher bird'--wot they call a 'nine-killer '--kills nine +birds a day! Yes! True ez you live! Sticks 'em up on thorns +outside his nest, jest like a butcher's shop, till he gets hungry. +I've seen 'em!" + +"And how do you kalkilate to tame him?" asked Sam. + +"By being good to him and lovin' him," said Peggy, stroking the +head of the bird with infinite gentleness. + +"That means YOU'VE got to do all the butchering for him?" said the +cynical Sam. + +Peggy shook her head, disdaining a verbal reply. + +"Ye can't bring him up on sugar and crackers, like a Polly," +persisted Sam. + +"Ye ken do anythin' with critters, if you ain't afeerd of 'em and +love 'em," said Peggy shyly. + +The tall tunnelman, looking down into the depths of Peggy's +sunbonnet, saw something in the round blue eyes and grave little +mouth that made him think so too. But here Peggy's serious little +face took a shade of darker concern as her arm went down deeper +into her pocket, and her eyes got rounder. + +"It's--it's--BURRERED OUT!" she said breathlessly. + +The giant leaped briskly to one side. "Hol' on," said Peggy +abstractedly. With infinite gravity she followed, with her +fingers, a seam of her skirt down to the hem, popped them quickly +under it, and produced, with a sigh of relief, the missing gopher. + +"You'll do," said Sam, in fearful admiration. "Mebbe you'll make +suthin' out o' the Colonel too. But I never took stock in that +there owl. He was too durned self-righteous for a decent bird. +Now, run along afore anythin' else fetches loose ag'in. So long!" + +He patted the top of her sunbonnet, gave a little pull to the short +brown braid that hung behind her temptingly,--which no miner was +ever known to resist,--and watched her flutter off with her spoils. +He had done so many times before, for the great, foolish heart of +the Blue Cement Ridge had gone out to Peggy Baker, the little +daughter of the blacksmith, quite early. There were others of the +family, notably two elder sisters, invincible at picnics and +dances, but Peggy was as necessary to these men as the blue jay +that swung before them in the dim woods, the squirrel that whisked +across their morning path, or the woodpecker who beat his tattoo at +their midday meal from the hollow pine above them. She was part of +the nature that kept them young. Her truancies and vagrancies +concerned them not: she was a law to herself, like the birds and +squirrels. There were bearded lips to hail her wherever she went, +and a blue or red-shirted arm always stretched out in any perilous +pass or dangerous crossing. + +Her peculiar tastes were an outcome of her nature, assisted by her +surroundings. Left a good deal to herself in her infancy, she made +playfellows of animated nature around her, without much reference +to selection or fitness, but always with a fearlessness that was +the result of her own observation, and unhampered by tradition or +other children's timidity. She had no superstition regarding the +venom of toads, the poison of spiders, or the ear-penetrating +capacity of earwigs. She had experiences and revelations of her +own,--which she kept sacredly to herself, as children do,--and one +was in regard to a rattlesnake, partly induced, however, by the +indiscreet warning of her elders. She was cautioned NOT to take +her bread and milk into the woods, and was told the affecting story +of the little girl who was once regularly visited by a snake that +partook of HER bread and milk, and who was ultimately found rapping +the head of the snake for gorging more than his share, and not +"taking a 'poon as me do." It is needless to say that this +incautious caution fired Peggy's adventurous spirit. SHE took a +bowlful of milk to the haunt of a "rattler" near her home, but, +without making the pretense of sharing it, generously left the +whole to the reptile. After repeating this hospitality for three +or four days, she was amazed one morning on returning to the house +to find the snake--an elderly one with a dozen rattles--devotedly +following her. Alarmed, not for her own safety nor that of her +family, but for the existence of her grateful friend in danger of +the blacksmith's hammer, she took a circuitous route leading it +away. Then recalling a bit of woodland lore once communicated to +her by a charcoal-burner, she broke a spray of the white ash, and +laid it before her in the track of the rattlesnake. He stopped +instantly, and remained motionless without crossing the slight +barrier. She repeated this experiment on later occasions, until +the reptile understood her. She kept the experience to herself, +but one day it was witnessed by a tunnelman. On that day Peggy's +reputation was made! + +From this time henceforth the major part of Blue Cement Ridge +became serious collectors for what was known as "Peggy's +menagerie," and two of the tunnelmen constructed a stockaded +inclosure--not half a mile from the blacksmith's cabin, but unknown +to him--for the reception of specimens. For a long time its +existence was kept a secret between Peggy and her loyal friends. +Her parents, aware of her eccentric tastes only through the +introduction of such smaller creatures as lizards, toads, and +tarantulas into their house,--which usually escaped from their tin +cans and boxes and sought refuge in the family slippers,--had +frowned upon her zoological studies. Her mother found that her +woodland rambles entailed an extraordinary wear and tear of her +clothing. A pinafore reduced to ribbons by a young fox, and a +straw hat half swallowed by a mountain kid, did not seem to be a +natural incident to an ordinary walk to the schoolhouse. Her +sisters thought her tastes "low," and her familiar association with +the miners inconsistent with their own dignity. But Peggy went +regularly to school, was a fair scholar in elementary studies (what +she knew of natural history, in fact, quite startled her teachers), +and being also a teachable child, was allowed some latitude. As +for Peggy herself, she kept her own faith unshaken; her little +creed, whose shibboleth was not "to be afraid" of God's creatures, +but to "love 'em," sustained her through reprimand, torn clothing, +and, it is to be feared, occasional bites and scratches from the +loved ones themselves. + +The unsuspected contiguity of the "menagerie" to the house had its +drawbacks, and once nearly exposed her. A mountain wolf cub, +brought especially for her from the higher northern Sierras with +great trouble and expense by Jack Ryder, of the Lone Star Lead, +unfortunately escaped from the menagerie just as the child seemed +to be in a fair way of taming it. Yet it had been already +familiarized enough with civilization to induce it to stop in its +flight and curiously examine the blacksmith's shop. A shout from +the blacksmith and a hurled hammer sent it flying again, with Mr. +Baker and his assistant in full pursuit. But it quickly distanced +them with its long, tireless gallop, and they were obliged to +return to the forge, lost in wonder and conjecture. For the +blacksmith had recognized it as a stranger to the locality, and as +a man of oracular pretension had a startling theory to account for +its presence. This he confided to the editor of the local paper, +and the next issue contained an editorial paragraph: "Our presage +of a severe winter in the higher Sierras, and consequent spring +floods in the valleys, has been startlingly confirmed! Mountain +wolves have been seen in Blue Cement Ridge, and our esteemed fellow +citizen, Mr. Ephraim Baker, yesterday encountered a half-starved +cub entering his premises in search of food. Mr. Baker is of the +opinion that the mother of the cub, driven down by stress of +weather, was in the immediate vicinity." Nothing but the distress +of the only responsible mother of the cub, Peggy, and loyalty to +her, kept Jack Ryder from exposing the absurdity publicly, but for +weeks the camp fires of Blue Cement Ridge shook with the suppressed +and unhallowed joy of the miners, who were in the guilty secret. + +But, fortunately for Peggy, the most favored of her cherished +possessions was not obliged to be kept secret. That one exception +was an Indian dog! This was also a gift, and had been procured +with great "difficulty" by a "packer" from an Indian encampment on +the Oregon frontier. The "difficulty" was, in plain English, that +it had been stolen from the Indians at some peril to the stealer's +scalp. It was a mongrel to all appearances, of no recognized breed +or outward significance, yet of a quality distinctly its own. It +was absolutely and totally uncivilized. Whether this was a +hereditary trait, or the result of degeneracy, no one knew. It +refused to enter a house; it would not stay in a kennel. It would +not eat in public, but gorged ravenously and stealthily in the +shadows. It had the slink of a tramp, and in its patched and +mottled hide seemed to simulate the rags of a beggar. It had the +tirelessness without the affected limp of a coyote. Yet it had +none of the ferocity of barbarians. With teeth that could gnaw +through the stoutest rope and toughest lariat, it never bared them +in anger. It was cringing without being amiable or submissive; it +was gentle without being affectionate. + +Yet almost insensibly it began to yield to Peggy's faith and +kindness. Gradually it seemed to single her out as the one being +in this vast white-faced and fully clothed community that it could +trust. It presently allowed her to half drag, half lead it to and +fro from school, although on the approach of a stranger it would +bite through the rope or frantically endeavor to efface itself in +Peggy's petticoats. It was trying, even to the child's sweet +gravity, to face the ridicule excited by its appearance on the +road; and its habit of carrying its tail between its legs--at such +an inflexible curve that, on the authority of Sam Bedell, a misstep +caused it to "turn a back somersault"--was painfully disconcerting. +But Peggy endured this, as she did the greater dangers of the High +Street in the settlement, where she had often, at her own risk, +absolutely to drag the dazed and bewildered creature from under the +wheels of carts and the heels of horses. But this shyness wore +off--or rather was eventually lost in the dog's complete and utter +absorption in Peggy. His limited intelligence and imperfect +perceptions were excited for her alone. His singularly keen scent +detected her wherever or how remote she might be. Her passage +along a "blind trail," her deviations from the school path, her +more distant excursions, were all mysteriously known to him. It +seemed as if his senses were concentrated in this one faculty. No +matter how unexpected or unfamiliar the itinerary, "Lo, the poor +Indian"--as the men had nicknamed him (in possible allusion to his +"untutored mind")--always arrived promptly and silently. + +It was to this singular faculty that Peggy owed one of her +strangest experiences. One Saturday afternoon she was returning +from an errand to the village when she was startled by the +appearance of Lo in her path. For the reason already given, she no +longer took him with her to these active haunts of civilization, +but had taught him on such occasions to remain as a guard outside +the stockade which contained her treasures. After reading him a +severe lecture on this flagrant abandonment of his trust, enforced +with great seriousness and an admonitory forefinger, she was +concerned to see that the animal appeared less agitated by her +reproof than by some other disturbance. He ran ahead of her, +instead of at her heels, as was his usual custom, and barked--a +thing he rarely did. Presently she thought she discovered the +cause of this in the appearance from the wood of a dozen men armed +with guns. They seemed to be strangers, but among them she +recognized the deputy sheriff of the settlement. The leader +noticed her, and, after a word or two with the others, the deputy +approached her. + +"You and Lo had better be scooting home by the highroad, outer +this--or ye might get hurt," he said, half playfully, half +seriously. + +Peggy looked fearlessly at the men and their guns. + +"Look ez ef you was huntin'?" she said curiously. + +"We are!" said the leader. + +"Wot you huntin'?" + +The deputy glanced at the others. "B'ar!" he replied. + +"Ba'r!" repeated the child with the quick resentment which a +palpable falsehood always provoked in her. "There ain't no b'ar in +ten miles! See yourself huntin' b'ar! Ho!" + +The man laughed. "Never you mind, missy," said the deputy, "you +trot along!" He laid his hand very gently on her head, faced her +sunbonnet towards the near highway, gave the usual parting pull to +her brown pigtail, added, "Make a bee-line home," and turned away. + +Lo uttered the first growl known in his history. Whereat Peggy +said, with lofty forbearance, "Serve you jest right ef I set my dog +on you." + +But force is no argument, and Peggy felt this truth even of herself +and Lo. So she trotted away. Nevertheless, Lo showed signs of +hesitation. After a few moments Peggy herself hesitated and looked +back. The men had spread out under the trees, and were already +lost in the woods. But there was more than one trail through it, +and Peggy knew it. + +And here an alarming occurrence startled her. A curiously striped +brown and white squirrel whisked past her and ran up a tree. +Peggy's round eyes became rounder. There was but one squirrel of +that kind in all the length and breadth of Blue Cement Ridge, and +that was in the menagerie! Even as she looked it vanished. Peggy +faced about and ran back to the road in the direction of the +stockade, Lo bounding before her. But another surprise awaited +her. There was the clutter of short wings under the branches, and +the sunlight flashed upon the iris throat of a wood-duck as it +swung out of sight past her. But in this single glance Peggy +recognized one of the latest and most precious of her acquisitions. +There was no mistake now! With a despairing little cry to Lo, "The +menagerie's broke loose!" she ran like the wind towards it. She +cared no longer for the mandate of the men; the trail she had taken +was out of their sight; they were proceeding so slowly and +cautiously that she and Lo quickly distanced them in the same +direction. She would have yet time to reach the stockade and +secure what was left of her treasures before they came up and drove +her away. Yet she had to make a long circuit to avoid the +blacksmith's shop and cabin, before she saw the stockade, lifting +its four-foot walls around an inclosure a dozen feet square, in the +midst of a manzanita thicket. But she could see also broken coops, +pens, cages, and boxes lying before it, and stopped once, even in +her grief and indignation, to pick up a ruby-throated lizard, one +of its late inmates that had stopped in the trail, stiffened to +stone at her approach. The next moment she was before the roofless +walls, and then stopped, stiffened like the lizard. For out of +that peaceful ruin which had once held the wild and untamed +vagabonds of earth and sky, arose a type of savagery and barbarism +the child had never before looked upon,--the head and shoulders of +a hunted, desperate man! + +His head was bare, and his hair matted with sweat over his +forehead; his face was unshorn, and the black roots of his beard +showed against the deadly pallor of his skin, except where it was +scratched by thorns, or where the red spots over his cheek bones +made his cheeks look as if painted. His eyes were as insanely +bright, he panted as quickly, he showed his white teeth as +perpetually, his movements were as convulsive, as those captured +animals she had known. Yet he did not attempt to fly, and it was +only when, with a sudden effort and groan of pain, he half lifted +himself above the stockade, that she saw that his leg, bandaged +with his cravat and handkerchief, stained a dull red, dragged +helplessly beneath him. He stared at her vacantly for a moment, +and then looked hurriedly into the wood behind her. + +The child was more interested than frightened, and more curious +than either. She had grasped the situation at a glance. It was +the hunted and the hunters. Suddenly he started and reached for +his rifle, which he had apparently set down outside when he climbed +into the stockade. He had just caught sight of a figure emerging +from the wood at a distance. But the weapon was out of his reach. + +"Hand me that gun!" he said roughly. + +But Peggy did not stir. The figure came more plainly and quite +unconsciously into full view, an easy shot at that distance. + +The man uttered a horrible curse, and turned a threatening face on +the child. But Peggy had seen something like that in animals SHE +had captured. She only said gravely,-- + +"Ef you shoot that gun you'll bring 'em all down on you!" + +"All?" he demanded. + +"Yes! a dozen folks with guns like yours," said Peggy. "You jest +crouch down and lie low. Don't move! Watch me." + +The man dropped below the stockade. Peggy ran swiftly towards the +unsuspecting figure, evidently the leader of the party, but +deviated slightly to snatch a tiny spray from a white-ash tree. +She never knew that in that brief interval the wounded man, after a +supreme effort, had possessed himself of his weapon, and for a +moment had covered HER with its deadly muzzle. She ran on +fearlessly until she saw that she had attracted the attention of +the leader, when she stopped and began to wave the white-ash wand +before her. The leader halted, conferred with some one behind him, +who proved to be the deputy sheriff. Stepping out he advanced +towards Peggy, and called sharply, + +"I told you to get out of this! Come, be quick!" + +"You'd better get out yourself," said Peggy, waving her ash spray, +"and quicker, too." + +The deputy stopped, staring at the spray. "Wot's up?" + +"Rattlers." + +"Where?" + +"Everywhere round ye--a reg'lar nest of 'em! That's your way +round!" She pointed to the right, and again began beating the +underbrush with her wand. The men had, meantime, huddled together +in consultation. It was evident that the story of Peggy and her +influence on rattlesnakes was well known, and, in all probability, +exaggerated. After a pause, the whole party filed off to the +right, making a long circuit of the unseen stockade, and were +presently lost in the distance. Peggy ran back to the fugitive. +The fire of savagery and desperation in his eyes had gone out, but +had been succeeded by a glazing film of faintness. + +"Can you--get me--some water?" he whispered. + +The stockade was near a spring,--a necessity for the menagerie. +Peggy brought him water in a dipper. She sighed a little; her +"butcher bird"--now lost forever--had been the last to drink from +it! + +The water seemed to revive him. "The rattlesnakes scared the +cowards," he said, with an attempt to smile. "Were there many +rattlers?" + +"There wasn't ANY," said Peggy, a little spitefully, "'cept YOU--a +two-legged rattler!" + +The rascal grinned at the compliment. + +"ONE-legged, you mean," he said, indicating his helpless limb. + +Peggy's heart relented slightly. "Wot you goin' to do now?" she +said. "You can't stay on THERE, you know. It b'longs to ME!" She +was generous, but practical. + +"Were those things I fired out yours?" + +"Yes." + +"Mighty rough of me." + +Peggy was slightly softened. "Kin you walk?" + +"No." + +"Kin you crawl?" + +"Not as far as a rattler." + +"Ez far ez that clearin'?" + +"Yes." + +"There's a hoss tethered out in that clearin'. I kin shift him to +this end." + +"You're white all through," said the man gravely. + +Peggy ran off to the clearing. The horse belonged to Sam Bedell, +but he had given Peggy permission to ride it whenever she wished. +This was equivalent, in Peggy's mind, to a permission to PLACE him +where she wished. She consequently led him to a point nearest the +stockade, and, thoughtfully, close beside a stump. But this took +some time, and when she arrived she found the fugitive already +there, very thin and weak, but still smiling. + +"Ye kin turn him loose when you get through with him; he'll find +his way back," said Peggy. "Now I must go." + +Without again looking at the man, she ran back to the stockade. +Then she paused until she heard the sound of hoofs crossing the +highway in the opposite direction from which the pursuers had +crossed, and knew that the fugitive had got away. Then she took +the astonished and still motionless lizard from her pocket, and +proceeded to restore the broken coops and cages to the empty +stockade. + +But she never reconstructed her menagerie nor renewed her +collection. People said she had tired of her whim, and that really +she was getting too old for such things. Perhaps she was. But she +never got old enough to reveal her story of the last wild animal +she had tamed by kindness. Nor was she quite sure of it herself, +until a few years afterwards on Commencement Day at a boarding- +school at San Jose, when they pointed out to her one of the most +respectable trustees. But they said he was once a gambler, who had +shot a man with whom he had quarreled, and was nearly caught and +lynched by a Vigilance Committee. + + + +THE GODDESS OF EXCELSIOR + + +When the two isolated mining companies encamped on Sycamore Creek +discovered on the same day the great "Excelsior Lead," they met +around a neutral camp fire with that grave and almost troubled +demeanor which distinguished the successful prospector in those +days. Perhaps the term "prospectors" could hardly be used for men +who had labored patiently and light-heartedly in the one spot for +over three years to gain a daily yield from the soil which gave +them barely the necessaries of life. Perhaps this was why, now +that their reward was beyond their most sanguine hopes, they +mingled with this characteristic gravity an ambition and resolve +peculiarly their own. Unlike most successful miners, they had no +idea of simply realizing their wealth and departing to invest or +spend it elsewhere, as was the common custom. On the contrary, +that night they formed a high resolve to stand or fall by their +claims, to develop the resources of the locality, to build up a +town, and to devote themselves to its growth and welfare. And to +this purpose they bound themselves that night by a solemn and legal +compact. + +Many circumstances lent themselves to so original a determination. +The locality was healthful, picturesque, and fertile. Sycamore +Creek, a considerable tributary of the Sacramento, furnished them a +generous water supply at all seasons; its banks were well wooded +and interspersed with undulating meadow land. Its distance from +stage-coach communication--nine miles--could easily be abridged by +a wagon road over a practically level country. Indeed, all the +conditions for a thriving settlement were already there. It was +natural, therefore, that the most sanguine anticipations were +indulged by the more youthful of the twenty members of this sacred +compact. The sites of a hotel, a bank, the express company's +office, stage office, and court-house, with other necessary +buildings, were all mapped out and supplemented by a theatre, a +public park, and a terrace along the river bank! It was only when +Clinton Grey, an intelligent but youthful member, on offering a +plan of the town with five avenues eighty feet wide, radiating from +a central plaza and the court-house, explained that "it could be +commanded by artillery in case of an armed attack upon the +building," that it was felt that a line must be drawn in anticipatory +suggestion. Nevertheless, although their determination was +unabated, at the end of six months little had been done beyond the +building of a wagon road and the importation of new machinery for +the working of the lead. The peculiarity of their design debarred +any tentative or temporary efforts; they wished the whole settlement +to spring up in equal perfection, so that the first stage-coach over +the new road could arrive upon the completed town. "We don't want to +show up in a 'b'iled shirt' and a plug hat, and our trousers stuck +in our boots," said a figurative speaker. Nevertheless, practical +necessity compelled them to build the hotel first for their own +occupation, pending the erection of their private dwellings on +allotted sites. The hotel, a really elaborate structure for the +locality and period, was a marvel to the workmen and casual +teamsters. It was luxuriously fitted and furnished. Yet it was in +connection with this outlay that the event occurred which had a +singular effect upon the fancy of the members. + +Washington Trigg, a Western member, who had brought up the +architect and builder from San Francisco, had returned in a state +of excitement. He had seen at an art exhibition in that city a +small replica of a famous statue of California, and, without +consulting his fellow members, had ordered a larger copy for the +new settlement. He, however, made up for his precipitancy by an +extravagant description of his purchase, which impressed even the +most cautious. "It's the figger of a mighty pretty girl, in them +spirit clothes they allus wear, holding a divinin' rod for findin' +gold afore her in one hand; all the while she's hidin' behind her, +in the other hand, a branch o' thorns out of sight. The idea +bein'--don't you see?--that blamed old 'forty-niners like us, or +ordinary greenhorns, ain't allowed to see the difficulties they've +got to go through before reaching a strike. Mighty cute, ain't it? +It's to be made life-size,--that is, about the size of a girl of +that kind, don't you see?" he explained somewhat vaguely, "and will +look powerful fetchin' standin' onto a pedestal in the hall of the +hotel." In reply to some further cautious inquiry as to the exact +details of the raiment and of any possible shock to the modesty of +lady guests at the hotel, he replied confidently, "Oh, THAT'S all +right! It's the regulation uniform of goddesses and angels,-- +sorter as if they'd caught up a sheet or a cloud to fling round 'em +before coming into this world afore folks; and being an allegory, +so to speak, it ain't as if it was me or you prospectin' in high +water. And, being of bronze, it"-- + +"Looks like a squaw, eh?" interrupted a critic, "or a cursed +Chinaman?" + +"And if it's of metal, it will weigh a ton! How are we going to +get it up here?" said another. + +But here Mr. Trigg was on sure ground. "I've ordered it cast +holler, and, if necessary, in two sections," he returned +triumphantly. "A child could tote it round and set it up." + +Its arrival was therefore looked forward to with great expectancy +when the hotel was finished and occupied by the combined Excelsior +companies. It was to come from New York via San Francisco, where, +however, there was some delay in its transshipment, and still +further delay at Sacramento. It finally reached the settlement +over the new wagon road, and was among the first freight carried +there by the new express company, and delivered into the new +express office. The box--a packing-case, nearly three feet square +by five feet long--bore superficial marks of travel and +misdirection, inasmuch as the original address was quite +obliterated and the outside lid covered with corrected labels. It +was carried to a private sitting-room in the hotel, where its +beauty was to be first disclosed to the president of the united +companies, three of the committee, and the excited and triumphant +purchaser. A less favored crowd of members and workmen gathered +curiously outside the room. Then the lid was carefully removed, +revealing a quantity of shavings and packing paper which still hid +the outlines of the goddess. When this was promptly lifted a stare +of blank astonishment fixed the faces of the party! It was +succeeded by a quick, hysteric laugh, and then a dead silence. + +Before them lay a dressmaker's dummy, the wire and padded model on +which dresses are fitted and shown. With its armless and headless +bust, abruptly ending in a hooped wire skirt, it completely filled +the sides of the box. + +"Shut the door," said the president promptly. + +The order was obeyed. The single hysteric shriek of laughter had +been followed by a deadly, ironical silence. The president, with +supernatural gravity, lifted it out and set it up on its small, +round, disk-like pedestal. + +"It's some cussed fool blunder of that confounded express company," +burst out the unlucky purchaser. But there was no echo to his +outburst. He looked around with a timid, tentative smile. But no +other smile followed his. + +"It looks," said the president, with portentous gravity, "like the +beginnings of a fine woman, that MIGHT show up, if you gave her +time, into a first-class goddess. Of course she ain't all here; +other boxes with sections of her, I reckon, are under way from her +factory, and will meander along in the course of the year. +Considerin' this as a sample--I think, gentlemen," he added, with +gloomy precision, "we are prepared to accept it, and signify we'll +take more." + +"It ain't, perhaps, exactly the idee that we've been led to expect +from previous description," said Dick Flint, with deeper +seriousness; "for instance, this yer branch of thorns we heard of +ez bein' held behind her is wantin', as is the arms that held it; +but even if they had arrived, anybody could see the thorns through +them wires, and so give the hull show away." + +"Jam it into its box again, and we'll send it back to the +confounded express company with a cussin' letter," again thundered +the wretched purchaser. + +"No, sonny," said the president with gentle but gloomy determination, +"we'll fasten on to this little show jest as it is, and see what +follows. It ain't every day that a first-class sell like this is +worked off on us ACCIDENTALLY." + +It was quite true! The settlement had long since exhausted every +possible form of practical joking, and languished for a new +sensation. And here it was! It was not a thing to be treated +angrily, nor lightly, nor dismissed with that single hysteric +laugh. It was capable of the greatest possibilities! Indeed, as +Washington Trigg looked around on the imperturbably ironical faces +of his companions, he knew that they felt more true joy over the +blunder than they would in the possession of the real statue. But +an exclamation from the fifth member, who was examining the box, +arrested their attention. + +"There's suthin' else here!" + +He had found under the heavier wrapping a layer of tissue-paper, +and under that a further envelope of linen, lightly stitched +together. A knife blade quickly separated the stitches, and the +linen was carefully unfolded. It displayed a beautifully trimmed +evening dress of pale blue satin, with a dressing-gown of some +exquisite white fabric armed with lace. The men gazed at it in +silence, and then the one single expression broke from their lips,-- + +"Her duds!" + +"Stop, boys," said "Clint" Grey, as a movement was made to lift the +dress towards the model, "leave that to a man who knows. What's +the use of my having left five grown-up sisters in the States if I +haven't brought a little experience away with me? This sort of +thing ain't to be 'pulled on' like trousers. No, sir!--THIS is the +way she's worked." + +With considerable dexterity, unexpected gentleness, and some taste, +he shook out the folds of the skirt delicately and lifted it over +the dummy, settling it skillfully upon the wire hoops, and drawing +the bodice over the padded shoulders. This he then proceeded to +fasten with hooks and eyes,--a work of some patience. Forty eager +fingers stretched out to assist him, but were waved aside, with a +look of pained decorum as he gravely completed his task. Then +falling back, he bade the others do the same, and they formed a +contemplative semicircle before the figure. + +Up to that moment a delighted but unsmiling consciousness of their +own absurdities, a keen sense of the humorous possibilities of the +original blunder, and a mischievous recognition of the +mortification of Trigg--whose only safety now lay in accepting the +mistake in the same spirit--had determined these grown-up +schoolboys to artfully protract a joke that seemed to be +providentially delivered into their hands. But NOW an odd change +crept on them. The light from the open window that gave upon the +enormous pines and the rolling prospect up to the dim heights of +the Sierras fell upon this strange, incongruous, yet perfectly +artistic figure. For the dress was the skillful creation of a +great Parisian artist, and in its exquisite harmony of color, +shape, and material it not only hid the absurd model, but clothed +it with an alarming grace and refinement! A queer feeling of awe, +of shame, and of unwilling admiration took possession of them. +Some of them--from remote Western towns--had never seen the like +before; those who HAD had forgotten it in those five years of self- +exile, of healthy independence, and of contiguity to Nature in her +unaffected simplicity. All had been familiar with the garish, +extravagant, and dazzling femininity of the Californian towns and +cities, but never had they known anything approaching the ideal +grace of this type of exalted, even if artificial, womanhood. And +although in the fierce freedom of their little republic they had +laughed to scorn such artificiality, a few yards of satin and lace +cunningly fashioned, and thrown over a frame of wood and wire, +touched them now with a strange sense of its superiority. The +better to show its attractions, Clinton Grey had placed the figure +near a full-length, gold-framed mirror, beside a marble-topped +table. Yet how cheap and tawdry these splendors showed beside this +work of art! How cruel was the contrast of their own rough working +clothes to this miracle of adornment which that same mirror +reflected! And even when Clinton Grey, the enthusiast, looked +towards his beloved woods for relief, he could not help thinking of +them as a more fitting frame for this strange goddess than this new +house into which she had strayed. Their gravity became real; their +gibes in some strange way had vanished. + +"Must have cost a pile of money," said one, merely to break an +embarrassing silence. + +"My sister had a friend who brought over a dress from Paris, not as +high-toned as that, that cost five hundred dollars," said Clinton +Grey. + +"How much did you say that spirit-clad old hag of yours cost-- +thorns and all?" said the president, turning sharply on Trigg. + +Trigg swallowed this depreciation of his own purchase meekly. +"Seven hundred and fifty dollars, without the express charges." + +"That's only two-fifty more," said the president thoughtfully, "if +we call it quits." + +"But," said Trigg in alarm, "we must send it back." + +"Not much, sonny," said the president promptly. "We'll hang on to +this until we hear where that thorny old chump of yours has fetched +up and is actin' her conundrums, and mebbe we can swap even." + +"But how will we explain it to the boys?" queried Trigg. "They're +waitin' outside to see it." + +"There WON'T be any explanation," said the president, in the same +tone of voice in which he had ordered the door shut. "We'll just +say that the statue hasn't come, which is the frozen truth; and +this box only contained some silk curtain decorations we'd ordered, +which is only half a lie. And," still more firmly, "THIS SECRET +DOESN'T GO OUT OF THIS ROOM, GENTLEMEN--or I ain't your president! +I'm not going to let you give yourselves away to that crowd +outside--you hear me? Have you ever allowed your unfettered +intellect to consider what they'd say about this,--what a godsend +it would be to every man we'd ever had a 'pull' on in this camp? +Why, it would last 'em a whole year; we'd never hear the end of it! +No, gentlemen! I prefer to live here without shootin' my fellow +man, but I can't promise it if they once start this joke agin us!" + +There was a swift approval of this sentiment, and the five members +shook hands solemnly. + +"Now," said the president, "we'll just fold up that dress again, +and put it with the figure in this closet"--he opened a large +dressing-chest in the suite of rooms in which they stood--"and +we'll each keep a key. We'll retain this room for committee +purposes, so that no one need see the closet. See? Now take off +the dress! Be careful there! You're not handlin' pay dirt, though +it's about as expensive! Steady!" + +Yet it was wonderful to see the solicitude and care with which the +dress was re-covered and folded in its linen wrapper. + +"Hold on," exclaimed Trigg,--as the dummy was lifted into the +chest,--"we haven't tried on the other dress!" + +"Yes! yes!" repeated the others eagerly; "there's another!" + +"We'll keep that for next committee meeting, gentlemen," said the +president decisively. "Lock her up, Trigg." + + +The three following months wrought a wonderful change in +Excelsior,--wonderful even in that land of rapid growth and +progress. Their organized and matured plans, executed by a full +force of workmen from the county town, completed the twenty +cottages for the members, the bank, and the town hall. Visitors +and intending settlers flocked over the new wagon road to see this +new Utopia, whose founders, holding the land and its improvements +as a corporate company, exercised the right of dictating the terms +on which settlers were admitted. The feminine invasion was not yet +potent enough to affect their consideration, either through any +refinement or attractiveness, being composed chiefly of the +industrious wives and daughters of small traders or temporary +artisans. Yet it was found necessary to confide the hotel to the +management of Mr. Dexter Marsh, his wife, and one intelligent but +somewhat plain daughter, who looked after the accounts. There were +occasional lady visitors at the hotel, attracted from the +neighboring towns and settlements by its picturesqueness and a +vague suggestiveness of its being a watering-place--and there was +the occasional flash in the decorous street of a Sacramento or San +Francisco gown. It is needless to say that to the five men who +held the guilty secret of Committee Room No. 4 it only strengthened +their belief in the super-elegance of their hidden treasure. At +their last meeting they had fitted the second dress--which turned +out to be a vapory summer house-frock or morning wrapper--over the +dummy, and opinions were divided as to its equality with the first. +However, the same subtle harmony of detail and grace of proportion +characterized it. + +"And you see," said Clint Grey, "it's jest the sort o' rig in which +a man would be most likely to know her--and not in her war-paint, +which would be only now and then." + +Already "SHE" had become an individuality! + +"Hush!" said the president. He had turned towards the door, at +which some one was knocking lightly. + +"Come in." + +The door opened upon Miss Marsh, secretary and hotel assistant. +She had a business aspect, and an open letter in her hand, but +hesitated at the evident confusion she had occasioned. Two of the +gentlemen had absolutely blushed, and the others regarded her with +inane smiles or affected seriousness. They all coughed slightly. + +"I beg your pardon," she said, not ungracefully, a slight color +coming into her sallow cheek, which, in conjunction with the gold +eye-glasses, gave her, at least in the eyes of the impressible +Clint, a certain piquancy. "But my father said you were here in +committee and I might consult you. I can come again, if you are +busy." + +She had addressed the president, partly from his office, his +comparatively extreme age--he must have been at least thirty!--and +possibly for his extremer good looks. He said hurriedly, "It's +just an informal meeting;" and then, more politely, "What can we do +for you?" + +"We have an application for a suite of rooms next week," she said, +referring to the letter, "and as we shall be rather full, father +thought you gentlemen might be willing to take another larger room +for your meetings, and give up these, which are part of a suite-- +and perhaps not exactly suitable"-- + +"Quite impossible!" "Quite so!" "Really out of the question," +said the members, in a rapid chorus. + +The young girl was evidently taken aback at this unanimity of +opposition. She stared at them curiously, and then glanced around +the room. "We're quite comfortable here," said the president +explanatorily, "and--in fact--it's just what we want." + +"We could give you a closet like that which you could lock up, and +a mirror," she suggested, with the faintest trace of a smile. + +"Tell your father, Miss Marsh," said the president, with dignified +politeness, "that while we cannot submit to any change, we fully +appreciate his business foresight, and are quite prepared to see +that the hotel is properly compensated for our retaining these +rooms." As the young girl withdrew with a puzzled curtsy he closed +the door, placed his back against it, and said,-- + +"What the deuce did she mean by speaking of that closet?" + +"Reckon she allowed we kept some fancy drinks in there," said +Trigg; "and calkilated that we wanted the marble stand and mirror +to put our glasses on and make it look like a swell private bar, +that's all!" + +"Humph," said the president. + +Their next meeting, however, was a hurried one, and as the +president arrived late, when the door closed smartly behind him he +was met by the worried faces of his colleagues. + +"Here's a go!" said Trigg excitedly, producing a folded paper. +"The game's up, the hull show is busted; that cussed old statue-- +the reg'lar old hag herself--is on her way here! There's a bill o' +lading and the express company's letter, and she'll be trundled +down here by express at any moment." + +"Well?" said the president quietly. + +"Well!" replied the members aghast. "Do you know what that means?" + +"That we must rig her up in the hall on a pedestal, as we reckoned +to do," returned the president coolly. + +"But you don't sabe," said Clinton Grey; "that's all very well as +to the hag, but now we must give HER up," with an adoring glance +towards the closet. + +"Does the letter say so?" + +"No," said Trigg hesitatingly, "no! But I reckon we can't keep +BOTH." + +"Why not?" said the president imperturbably, "if we paid for 'em?" + +As the men only stared in reply he condescended to explain. + +"Look here! I calculated all these risks after our last meeting. +While you boys were just fussin' round, doin' nothing, I wrote to +the express company that a box of women's damaged duds had arrived +here, while we were looking for our statue; that you chaps were so +riled at bein' sold by them that you dumped the whole blamed thing +in the creek. But I added, if they'd let me know what the damage +was, I'd send 'em a draft to cover it. After a spell of waitin' +they said they'd call it square for two hundred dollars, +considering our disappointment. And I sent the draft. That's +spurred them up to get over our statue, I reckon. And, now that +it's coming, it will set us right with the boys." + +"And SHE," said Clinton Grey again, pointing to the locked chest, +"belongs to us?" + +"Until we can find some lady guest that will take her with the +rooms," returned the president, a little cynically. + +But the arrival of the real statue and its erection in the hotel +vestibule created a new sensation. The members of the Excelsior +Company were loud in its praises except the executive committee, +whose coolness was looked upon by the others as an affectation of +superiority. It awakened the criticism and jealousy of the nearest +town. + +"We hear," said the "Red Dog Advertiser," "that the long-promised +statue has been put up in that high-toned Hash Dispensary they call +a hotel at Excelsior. It represents an emaciated squaw in a scanty +blanket gathering roots, and carrying a bit of thorn-bush kindlings +behind her. The high-toned, close corporation of Excelsior may +consider this a fair allegory of California; WE should say it looks +mighty like a prophetic forecast of a hard winter on Sycamore Creek +and scarcity of provisions. However, it isn't our funeral, though +it's rather depressing to the casual visitor on his way to dinner. +For a long time this work of art was missing and supposed to be +lost, but by being sternly and persistently rejected at every +express office on the route, it was at last taken in at Excelsior." + +There was some criticism nearer home. + +"What do you think of it, Miss Marsh?" said the president politely +to that active young secretary, as he stood before it in the hall. +The young woman adjusted her eye-glasses over her aquiline nose. + +"As an idea or a woman, sir?" + +"As a woman, madam," said the president, letting his brown eyes +slip for a moment from Miss Marsh's corn-colored crest over her +straight but scant figure down to her smart slippers. + +"Well, sir, she could wear YOUR boots, and there isn't a corset in +Sacramento would go round her." + +"Thank you!" he returned gravely, and moved away. For a moment a +wild idea of securing possession of the figure some dark night, +and, in company with his fellow-conspirators, of trying those +beautiful clothes upon her, passed through his mind, but he +dismissed it. And then occurred a strange incident, which startled +even his cool, American sanity. + +It was a beautiful moonlight night, and he was returning to a +bedroom at the hotel which he temporarily occupied during the +painting of his house. It was quite late, he having spent the +evening with a San Francisco friend after a business conference +which assured him of the remarkable prosperity of Excelsior. It +was therefore with some human exaltation that he looked around the +sleeping settlement which had sprung up under the magic wand of +their good fortune. The full moon had idealized their youthful +designs with something of their own youthful coloring, graciously +softening the garish freshness of paint and plaster, hiding with +discreet obscurity the disrupted banks and broken woods at the +beginning and end of their broad avenues, paving the rough river +terrace with tessellated shadows, and even touching the rapid +stream which was the source of their wealth with a Pactolean +glitter. + +The windows of the hotel before him, darkened within, flashed in +the moonbeams like the casements of Aladdin's palace. Mingled with +his ambition, to-night, were some softer fancies, rarely indulged +by him in his forecast of the future of Excelsior--a dream of some +fair partner in his life, after this task was accomplished, yet +always of some one moving in a larger world than his youth had +known. Rousing the half sleeping porter, he found, however, only +the spectral gold-seeker in the vestibule,--the rays of his +solitary candle falling upon her divining-rod with a quaint +persistency that seemed to point to the stairs he was ascending. +When he reached the first landing the rising wind through an open +window put out his light, but, although the staircase was in +darkness, he could see the long corridor above illuminated by the +moonlight throughout its whole length. He had nearly reached it +when the slow but unmistakable rustle of a dress in the distance +caught his ear. He paused, not only in the interest of delicacy, +but with a sudden nervous thrill he could not account for. The +rustle came nearer--he could hear the distinct frou-frou of satin; +and then, to his bewildered eyes, what seemed to be the figure of +the dummy, arrayed in the pale blue evening dress he knew so well, +passed gracefully and majestically down the corridor. He could see +the shapely folds of the skirt, the symmetry of the bodice, even +the harmony of the trimmings. He raised his eyes, half affrightedly, +prepared to see the headless shoulders, but they--and what seemed to +be a head--were concealed in a floating "cloud" or nubia of some +fleecy tissue, as if for protection from the evening air. He +remained for an instant motionless, dazed by this apparent motion of +an inanimate figure; but as the absurdity of the idea struck him he +hurriedly but stealthily ascended the remaining stairs, resolved to +follow it. But he was only in time to see it turn into the angle of +another corridor, which, when he had reached it, was empty. The +figure had vanished! + +His first thought was to go to the committee room and examine the +locked closet. But the key was in his desk at home, he had no +light, and the room was on the other side of the house. Besides, +he reflected that even the detection of the figure would involve +the exposure of the very secret they had kept intact so long. He +sought his bedroom, and went quietly to bed. But not to sleep; a +curiosity more potent than any sense of the trespass done him kept +him tossing half the night. Who was this woman whom the clothes +fitted so well? He reviewed in his mind the guests in the house, +but he knew none who could have carried off this masquerade so +bravely. + +In the morning early he made his way to the committee room, but as +he approached was startled to observe two pairs of boots, a man's +and a woman's, conjugally placed before its door. Now thoroughly +indignant, he hurried to the office, and was confronted by the face +of the fair secretary. She colored quickly on seeing him--but the +reason was obvious. + +"You are coming to scold me, sir! But it is not my fault. We were +full yesterday afternoon when your friend from San Francisco came +here with his wife. We told him those were YOUR rooms, but he said +he would make it right with you--and my father thought you would +not be displeased for once. Everything of yours was put into +another room, and the closet remains locked as you left it." + +Amazed and bewildered, the president could only mutter a vague +apology and turn away. Had his friend's wife opened the door with +another key in some fit of curiosity and disported herself in those +clothes? If so, she DARE not speak of her discovery. + +An introduction to the lady at breakfast dispelled this faint hope. +She was a plump woman, whose generous proportions could hardly have +been confined in that pale blue bodice; she was frank and +communicative, with no suggestion of mischievous concealment. + +Nevertheless, he made a firm resolution. As soon as his friends +left he called a meeting of the committee. He briefly informed +them of the accidental occupation of the room, but for certain +reasons of his own said nothing of his ghostly experience. But he +put it to them plainly that no more risks must be run, and that he +should remove the dresses and dummy to his own house. To his +considerable surprise this suggestion was received with grave +approval and a certain strange relief. + +"We kinder thought of suggesting it to you before," said Mr. Trigg +slowly, "and that mebbe we've played this little game long enough-- +for suthin's happened that's makin' it anything but funny. We'd +have told you before, but we dassent! Speak out, Clint, and tell +the president what we saw the other night, and don't mince matters." + +The president glanced quickly and warningly around him. "I +thought," he said sternly, "that we'd dropped all fooling. It's no +time for practical joking now!" + +"Honest Injun--it's gospel truth! Speak up, Clint!" + +The president looked on the serious faces around him, and was +himself slightly awed. + +"It's a matter of two or three nights ago," said Grey slowly, "that +Trigg and I were passing through Sycamore Woods, just below the +hotel. It was after twelve--bright moonlight, so that we could see +everything as plain as day, and we were dead sober. Just as we +passed under the sycamores Trigg grabs my arm, and says, 'Hi!' I +looked up, and there, not ten yards away, standing dead in the +moonlight, was that dummy! She was all in white--that dress with +the fairy frills, you know--and had, what's more, A HEAD! At +least, something white all wrapped around it, and over her +shoulders. At first we thought you or some of the boys had dressed +her up and lifted her out there for a joke, and left her to +frighten us! So we started forward, and then--it's the gospel +truth!--she MOVED AWAY, gliding like the moonbeams, and vanished +among the trees!" + +"Did you see her face?" asked the president. + +"No; you bet! I didn't try to--it would have haunted me forever." + +"What do you mean?" + +"This--I mean it was that GIRL THE BOX BELONGED TO! She's dead +somewhere--as you'll find out sooner or later--AND HAS COME BACK +FOR HER CLOTHES! I've often heard of such things before." + +Despite his coolness, at this corroboration of his own experience, +and impressed by Grey's unmistakable awe, a thrill went through the +president. For an instant he was silent. + +"That will do, boys," he said finally. "It's a queer story; but +remember, it's all the more reason now for our keeping our secret. +As for those things, I'll remove them quietly and at once." + +But he did not. + +On the contrary, prolonging his stay at the hotel with plausible +reasons, he managed to frequently visit the committee room or its +vicinity, at different and unsuspected hours of the day and night. +More than that, he found opportunities to visit the office, and +under pretexts of business connected with the economy of the hotel +management, informed himself through Miss Marsh on many points. A +few of these details naturally happened to refer to herself, her +prospects, her tastes, and education. He learned incidentally, +what he had partly known, that her father had been in better +circumstances, and that she had been gently nurtured--though of +this she made little account in her pride in her own independence +and devotion to her duties. But in his own persistent way he also +made private notes of the breadth of her shoulders, the size of her +waist, her height, length of her skirt, her movements in walking, +and other apparently extraneous circumstances. It was natural that +he acquired some supplemental facts,--that her eyes, under her eye- +glasses, were a tender gray, and touched with the melancholy beauty +of near-sightedness; that her face had a sensitive mobility beyond +the mere charm of color, and like most people lacking this +primitive and striking element of beauty, what was really fine +about her escaped the first sight. As, for instance, it was only +by bending over to examine her accounts that he found that her +indistinctive hair was as delicate as floss silk and as electrical. +It was only by finding her romping with the children of a guest one +evening that he was startled by the appalling fact of her youth! +But about this time he left the hotel and returned to his house. + +On the first yearly anniversary of the great strike at Excelsior +there were some changes in the settlement, notably the promotion of +Mr. Marsh to a more important position in the company, and the +installation of Miss Cassie Marsh as manageress of the hotel. As +Miss Marsh read the official letter, signed by the president, +conveying in complimentary but formal terms this testimony of their +approval and confidence, her lip trembled slightly, and a tear +trickling from her light lashes dimmed her eye-glasses, so that she +was fain to go up to her room to recover herself alone. When she +did so she was startled to find a wire dummy standing near the +door, and neatly folded upon the bed two elegant dresses. A note +in the president's own hand lay beside them. A swift blush stung +her cheek as she read,-- + + +DEAR MISS MARSH,--Will you make me happy by keeping the secret that +no other woman but yourself knows, and by accepting the clothes +that no other woman but yourself can wear? + + +The next moment, with the dresses over her arm and the ridiculous +dummy swinging by its wires from her other hand, she was flying +down the staircase to Committee Room No. 4. The door opened upon +its sole occupant, the president. + +"Oh, sir, how cruel of you!" she gasped. "It was only a joke of +mine. . . . I always intended to tell you. . . . It was very +foolish, but it seemed so funny. . . . You see, I thought it +was . . . the dress you had bought for your future intended--some +young lady you were going to marry!" + +"It is!" said the president quietly, and he closed the door behind +her. + +And it was. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Openings in the Old Trail, by Bret Harte + diff --git a/old/oitot10.zip b/old/oitot10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c0ca292 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/oitot10.zip |